LIBRARY  OF  PRINCETON 


THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


BS2/i30  .M3  1905 
Representative  men  of  the  Nfv>j 
Testament^  by  George  Matheson 


THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 
OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

GEORGE  MATHESON 
D.D.,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.E. 


HODDER  &  STOUGHTON 

NEW  YORK 

GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


OF  PR?/vr 


JAN    6    1986 


Copyright,  1905 
By  A.  d!  ARMSTRONG  &  SON 


Printed  in  United  States  of  America 


PREFACE 

I  HAVE  lately  published  two  volumes  dealing 
with  the  representative  men  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment— the  men  who  therein  represent  sections 
of  universal  humanity.  They  embraced  a  series 
of  studies  neither  historical*  nor  critical,  but 
mental.  I  imagined  myself  standing  in  a  gal- 
lery looking  at  a  collection  of  portraits,  and 
setting  myself  to  analyse  these  as  they  are  de- 
lineated. The  aim  was  to  take  them  just  as 
they  are  presented  to  us,  and,  without  inquiring 
whence  or  how  they  come,  to  find  the  special 
thought  which  each  reveals.  The  kindly  recep- 
tion of  the  effort  has  emboldened  me  to  issue  a 
similar  volume  of  New  Testament  representa- 
tives. Strictly  speaking,  the  new  gallery  is 
not  a  continuation  of  the  old.  The  old  exhib- 
its phases  of  character;  the  new,  revolutions 
of  character.  Nevertheless,  in  the  latter  as 
much  as  in  the  former,  we  expect  to  find  that 


vi  PREFACE 

each  portrait  embodies  a  distinct  thought;  and 
it  is  this  thought  which  we  seek  for.  The 
studies  are  again  mental  — not  critical  nor 
historical.  We  take  the  figures  as  they  stand 
before  us.  We  simply  put  one  question :  As- 
suming the  authenticity  of  the  narratives  and 
letters,  what  is  the  message  which  each  life 
brings?  About  the  historical  character  of  the 
portraits,  I  have  myself  no  doubt ;  but  it  will  be 
admitted  by  all  schools  that,  if  revelation  there 
be,  it  must  ultimately  lie  in  the  thought.  I 
have  only  to  add  that,  as  in  the  previous  vol- 
umes, I  have  given  the  book  a  semi-devotional 
aspect  by  closing  each  chapter  with  a  short 
invocation  or  prayer. 

G.  M. 
Edinburgh,  1905. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  rAuis 

I.  Introduction, i 

II.  John  the  Expanded, 24 

III.  John  the  Self-Surrendered,   ...    45 

•   IV.  Nathanael  the  Invigorated,  .        .       .    67 

V.  Peter  the  Emboldened,    .        .        .        .88 

VI.    NiCODEMUS   THE   INSTRUCTED,        .  .  .    I09 

VII.  Thomas  the  Convinced,     .       .       .        .131 

VIII.  Philip  the  Disillusioned,         .        .        .153 

IX.  Matthew  the  Exalted,     .        .        .        .  17S 

-•     X.  Zaccheus  the  Conscious-Struck,     .       .  196 

XI.  James  the  Softened, 217 

XII.  Barnabas  the  Chastened,         .       .        .239 

XIII.  Mark  the  Steadied, 262 

XIV.  Cornelius  the  Transplanted,         .       .  285 
XV.  Timothy  the  Disciplined,         .        .        .307 

XVI.  Paul  the  Illuminated,      .       .        .       .329 


vu 


CHAPTER    I 

INTRODUCTION 

There  are  moments  in  the  history  of  this  world 
which  may  be  called  moments  of  ingathering. 
Their  mission  is  to  collect  the  experiences  of 
the  past  and  bind  them  into  unity.  The  most 
striking  of  all  such  moments  is  the  advent  of 
Christ.  To  the  men  who  witnessed  that  advent 
it  presented  an  appearance  which  they  have  de- 
scribed by  one  word,  'fulness. '  In  the  heart  of 
the  Roman  Empire  there  stood  forth  a  man 
who  resembled  in  His  nature  nothing  so  much 
as  that  empire  itself.  Rome  was  not  a  country 
of  the  earth ;  she  was  a  country  that  had  become 
the  earth.  She  had  gathered  into  her  bosom 
the  once  separate  lands  and  bound  them  by 
a  silver  chain;  she  represented  to  the  view 
of  the  spectator  not  a  nation,  but  the  human 

race.      So  was  it  with  the  man  Christ  Jesus. 
I 


2  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

He  was  a  mirror  of  that  empire  into  which  He 
was  born.  If  Rome  united  in  her  constitution 
all  dominions  and  powers,  Jesus  united  in  His 
person  all  types  of  character.  The  rivers  of 
every  land  had  run  into  this  human  sea.  The 
earnestness  of  Judah  was  there;  the  buoyancy 
of  Greece  was  there;  the  mysticism  of  India 
was  there ;  the  practicalness  of  China  was  there ; 
the  legal  acumen  of  Rome  herself  was  there. 
There  dwelt  the  self-restraint  of  the  Stoic,  the 
easy  mind  of  the  Epicurean,  the  winged  imagina- 
tion of  the  Platonist.  There  repose  side  by  side 
things  which  naturally  fly  apart — the  simplicity 
of  Galilee  and  the  subtlety  of  Jerusalem,  the 
gravity  of  the  East  and  the  sparkle  of  the  West, 
the  devotion  of  the  Brahman  to  the  soul,  and 
that  care  for  the  wants  of  the  body  which  con- 
stitutes the  essence  of  the  European  life. 

If  you  wish  to  see  the  fulness  of  the  life  of 
Christ  just  put  to  yourself  one  question.  Re- 
tracing the  steps  through  that  Gallery  of  the  Old 
Testament  which  we  have  traversed,  and  taking 
at  random  any  great  quality  expressed  by  any 
^gure,  simply  ask  yourself,  Is  not  this  equally 


INTRODUCTION  3 

represented  in  the  life  of  Jesus?  Has  Enoch  a 
vision  of  immortality ;  Christ  professes  to  reveal 
life  eternal.  Is  Noah  a  preacher  of  righteousness ; 
Christ  calls  sinners  to  repentance.  Has  Abra- 
ham a  dream  of  universal  empire ;  Christ  claims 
to  found  a  kingdom  of  God.  Does  Isaac  rep- 
resent home-life;  so  does  Christ  at  Bethany. 
Does  Jacob  aspire  to  a  priesthood ;  Christ  offers 
Himself  for  a  world's  sin.  Is  Moses  the  law- 
giver on  Sinai;  Christ  is  the  law-giver  on  Her- 
mon.  Is  David  chivalrous  to  his  foes;  Christ 
forgives  His  enemies.  I  do  not  know  a  phase  of 
Old  Testament  heroism  which  has  not  been  re- 
produced in  the  Picture  of  Jesus.  The  calm  wis- 
dom of  Solomon  is  here,  side  by  side  with  the 
flashing  of  Elijah's  fire.  The  fine  courtesy  of 
Boaz  is  here,  hand  in  hand  with  Elisha's  denuncia- 
tion of  wrong.  The  daring  fearlessness  of  Daniel 
is  here,  blended  in  equal  measure  with  Job's  pa- 
tient endurance.  The  humanitarian  sweep  of 
Isaiah  is  here,  but  along  with  it  there  is  some- 
thing' which  such  universal  sympathy  is  apt  to 
exclude — the  capacity  for  individual  friendship 
which  marks  the  soul  of  Jonathan. 


4  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

It  seems  to  me  that  such  a  mode  of  experi- 
menting on  the  Sacred  Gallery  would  be  a  real 
test  of  'the  fulness  of  Him  that  filleth  all  in 
all'  One  who  was  almost  a  contemporary  of 
the  Galilean  ministry  speaks  of  Christ  as  des- 
tined in  the  future  to  gather  all  things  to  Him- 
self. But,  from  an  artistic  point  of  view,  this 
gathering  was  already  completed.  The  Por- 
trait of  Jesus  is  not  the  representative  of  a 
phase  of  humanity;  it  is  humanity  itself.  He 
unites  in  one  face  and  form  the  faces  and  forms 
of  the  whole  past  Gallery.  He  represents  no 
special  quality;  He  expresses  all  qualities  and 
He  expresses  all  specially — in  a  pronounced 
degree.  It  is  written,  '  When  the  fulness 
of  the  time  was  come  God  sent  His  Son.* 
The  fulness  of  the  time  was  the  time  for  ful- 
ness. It  was  the  age  when  the  rivers  were  to 
be  ripe  for  being  gathered  into  the  sea,  when 
the  planets  were  to  be  ready  for  incorporation 
in  the  solar  beam.  The  human  side  of  Chris- 
tianity was  to  be  not  the  revelation  of  a  man, 
but  the  revelation  of  Man.  I  read  in  the  Book  of 
Genesis  that  *  in  the  beginning  God  created  the 


INTRODUCTION  5 

heavens  and  the  earth ' — that  the  first  thing  on 
which  He  gazed  was  not  a  part  but  the  whole. 
So  has  it  been  with  the  genesis  of  Christianity. 
The  first  thing  which  appeared  to  the  eye  of 
the  spectator  was  its  entire  heaven  and  its  en- 
tire earth.  Future  years  would  exhibit  the 
separate  items — sun,  moon,  and  star — herb, 
plant,  and  tree.  But  the  morning  of  Chris- 
tianity was  the  union  of  all  things.  All  gifts 
and  graces  were  embraced  in  a  single  life — the 
man  Christ  Jesus.  The  colours  of  that  life, 
which  one  day  were  to  be  distributed  among 
different  flowers,  were  beheld  at  first  concen- 
trated in  a  rainbow.  The  garment  which  to- 
morrow was  to  be  parted  among  many  bore 
to-day  the  aspect  of  a  single  robe  whose  rich- 
ness enwrapped  one  human  spirit,  and  whose 
folds  were  covering  one  individual  form. 

In  the  primitive  stage  of  village  life  we 
commonly  find  all  commodities  embraced  in  a 
single  store.  People  go  there  for  the  most 
unlike  things — daily  food,  medicine,  millinery, 
house  -  letting,  carriage  -  driving,  registration, 
banking,  the  offices  of  the  smith  and  the  car- 


6  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

penter — perhaps  even  of  the  lawyer  and  the 
preacher.  The  time  will  come  when  each  of 
these  will  form  its  separate  craft.  But  in  the 
primitive  village  they  are  apt  to  be  vested  in  a 
single  life — a  life  of  which  we  might  say,  in 
adaptation  of  the  words  of  Scripture,  *of  its 
fulness  have  we  all  received.*  Now,  this  is 
precisely  the  case  of  primitive  Christianity. 
All  its  varied  glories  which  one  day  are  to  be 
disseminated  are  heaped  up  in  a  single  soul. 
Like  the  nebular  fire-cloud,  it  holds  the  fulness 
of  all  things.  There  sleeps  the  summary  of  the 
past;  there  lies  the  germ  of  the  future.  Ex- 
periences the  most  diverse  are  there.  The  un- 
canonical  Melchisedek  and  the  priestly  Aaron, 
the  strong  Ishmael  and  the  tender  Abel,  the 
optimistic  Joseph  and  the  sad  Jeremiah,  the 
child  Samuel  and  the  manly  Joshlia,  the  expec- 
tant Caleb  and  the  retrospective  Hezekiah,  the 
dependent  Mephibosheth  and  the  all-conquering 
Gideon — they  each  rest  there.  It  would  seem  as 
if  the  river  of  Paradise  had  for  a  moment  gath- 
ered back  into  her  bosom  those  streams  from 
which  she  had  parted,  and  revealed  within  the 


INTRODUCTION  7 

compass  of  one  garden  the  manifold  grace  of 
God.  Christianity  began  where  all  life  begins — 
in  a  single  cell — enfolding  within  the  walls  of 
a  seemingly  insignificant  dwelling  the  nucleus 
of  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth. 

And  now  I  come  to  a  crucial  question.  I  hear 
the  reader  say :  *  If  this  Portrait  of  Jesus  has 
gathered  up  the  past,  and  if  the  future  is  to  be 
simply  a  repetition  of  its  glories,  why  do  you 
speak  of  new  representative  men !  Nay,  on  such 
a  principle,  why  should  you  even  speak  of  a  New 
Testament!  What  is  new  about  it!  You  have 
shown  in  the  Old  Gallery  every  conceivable 
quality  depicted  that  can  belong  to  a  human 
soul.  You  show  at  the  opening  of  the  Chris- 
tian dispensation  these  qualities  united  in  a  single 
life.  You  tell  us  that  in  the  coming  section  of 
the  Gallery  the  qualities  thus  united  are  agam 
to  be  distributed  in  separate  individual  por- 
traits. In  such  a  process  where  is  there  any  room 
for  novelty !  Is  it  not  simply  a  repetition  of  old 
qualities !  Do  we  not  get  out  of  the  box  exactly 
what  we  put  in!  Has  the  Old  Testament 
Gallery  left  any  phase  of  mind  without  a  rec- 


8  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

ord !  How  shall  we  distinguish  between  the  fire 
of  an  Elijah  and  the  fire  of  a  Peter!  How 
shall  we  discriminate  between  the  unselfishness 
of  an  Abraham  and  the  unselfishness  of  a  Paul ! 
How  shall  we  draw  the  line  between  the  friend- 
ship of  a  Jonathan  and  the  friendship  of  a  John ! ' 
These  are  crucial  questions,  and  they  are  perti- 
nent questions.  They  await  every  man  who 
attempts  to  deal  with  the  representative  men  of 
the  Bible.  If  Christ  is  at  once  the  flower  of  the 
past  and  the  bud  of  the  future,  then  the  qual- 
ities of  the  future  must  be  simply  the  qualities 
of  the  past.  And  if  it  be  so,  is  not  our  prog- 
ress merely  a  circle,  our  development  only  a 
dream!  It  seems  a  misnomer  to  speak  of ^' the 
new  man ' — to  say  that  if  a  man  is  in  Christ  he 
is  *  a  new  creature.  *  Where  is  the  novelty  if  I 
have  simply  climbed  the  wall  to  see  the  fields 
of  childhood!  Would  it  not  be  more  correct  to 
reverse  the  words  of  Paul  and  say,  *To  be  in 
Christ  is  to  retrace  our  yesterday;  new  things 
have  passed  away  and  all  things  have  become 
old'  ! 

But  let  us  look  deeper  and  this  impression  it- 


INTRODUCTION  9 

self  will  pass  away.  What  is  the  account  which 
the  New  Testament  Gallery  gives  of  its  own  de- 
velopment?— by  that  it  ought  to  be  judged,  by 
that  it  should  stand  or  fall.  Now,  it  so  hap- 
pens that  a  spectator  of  this  gallery  has  given  us 
a  very  clear  view  of  what  in  his  opinion  its  fig- 
ures were  meant  to  represent.  He  says,  '  It  was 
worthy  of  Him  of  whom  are  all  things  and  to 
whom  are  all  things,  in  bringing  many  sons  unto 
glory,  to  make  the  captain  of  their  salvation  per- 
fect through  sufferings.'  Here,  by  the  glance 
of  one  piercing  eye,  is  the  nature  of  the  New 
Gallery  revealed!  It  is  not  a  new  assemblage 
of  qualities ;  it  is  a  new  mode  of  acquiring  them. 
In  the  old  dispensation  these  qualities  were  the 
gifts  of  Nature.  Men  were  born  with  them; 
they  were  the  native  soil  of  the  heart.  They 
came  to  each  soul  as  naturally  as  air  comes,  as 
food  comes,  as  pastime  comes.  But  in  the  new 
dispensation — in  the  section  of  the  Gallery 
which  was  about  to  open,  there  was  to  be  a 
change  of  ground.  The  qualities  which  had  been 
native  to  the  soul  were  to  become  the  fruit 
of  struggle.     Men  were  no  longer  to  be  born 


JO  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

with  them;  they  were  to  win  them — to  attain 
them  through  conflict,  to  reach  them  by  suffer- 
ing. The  difference  between  the  Old  Gallery 
and  the  New  is  the  difference  between  tempera- 
ment and  grace;  temperament  is  a  planting, 
grace  is  a  supplanting.  Joseph  is  an  optimist 
and  Peter  is  an  optimist;  but  the  optimism  of 
Joseph  is  very  different  from  the  optimism  of 
Peter.  Joseph  was  hopeful  from  disposition — 
he  found  the  flowers  in  his  cradle  and  he  trea- 
sured them  in  his  heart;  Peter  was  hopeful  as 
the  result  of  experience — he  began  life  amid  the 
briars  and  he  transformed  them  into  flowers. 
This  is  a  typical  instance.  It  expresses  in  a 
single  sentence  my  whole  view  of  the  difference 
between  the  New  Gallery  and  the  Old.  In  com- 
ing to  Christ  we  are  coming  to  the  winepress. 
We  are  approaching  a  transforming  process. 
We  are  entering  upon  a  stage  in  which  char 
acter  is  to  be  built,  not  born.  We  are  coming  to 
a  period  in  which  the  wild  flower  is  to  give  place 
to  the  flower  of  cultivation,  and  where  a  king- 
dom which  belonged  to  hereditary  transmission 
is  to  be  won  by  the  power  of  the  sword. 


INTRODUCTION  ii 

Here,  then,  is  the  nature  of  the  New  Evangel 
— perfection  through  suffering — the  attainment 
of  a  quality  as  the  result  of  struggle.  It  would 
not  in  the  least  minimise  the  difference  between 
the  two  Galleries  if  you  could  prove  that  the  gen- 
tleness of  Ruth  was  as  perfect  as  the  gentleness 
of  John.  The  gentleness  of  Ruth  originates  in 
a  different  source  from  the  gentleness  of  John. 
The  former  was  a  birthright;  the  latter  was  a 
conquest.  The  former  was  a  gift  of  nature; 
the  latter  was  a  trophy  of  grace.  The  former 
was  a  spontaneous  breath  of  the  morning;  the 
latter  was  a  delicious  fragrance  which  had  been 
gathered  in  the  afternoon.  Christianity  is  per- 
fection through  suffering,  excellence  through 
suffering.  Even  where  its  fruits  are  less  beau- 
tiful than  the  fruits  of  Judaism,  they  are  more 
precious;  they  can  stand  the  storm.  Judaism 
shrank  from  the  storm;  its  virtues  tended  to 
wither  before  the  blast.  But  the  virtues  of  Chris- 
tianity were  to  be  brought  upon  the  blast.  They 
were  to  come  to  the  soul  on  the  wings  of  the 
wind.  They  were  to  be  the  product  not  of 
spring  but  of  autumn,   not  of  hereditary  bias 


12  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

but  of  stern  experience.  Christian  faith  de- 
manded a  cloud.  Christian  courage  demanded 
a  fear.  Christian  love  demanded  an  impedi- 
ment. Christian  peace  demanded  a  struggle. 
Christian  purity  demanded  a  meeting  with  the 
tempter  in  the  wilderness. 

Now,  in  the  light  of  this  contrast,  I  shall  look 
at  the  New  Testament  Gallery  from  a  different 
standpoint  to  that  from  which  I  surveyed  the 
Old.  In  the  previous  volumes  each  portrait 
was  accompanied  by  an  adjective  expressing  its 
quality.  I  shall  now  assign  to  each  portrait, 
not  a  descriptive  adjective,  but  a  descriptive 
verb-— a  verb  indicating  the  particular  influence 
which  has  been  exerted  over  the  man  and  which 
has  transformed  the  man.  I  should  say  that  in 
cnis  world  there  are  always  the  two  classes — the 
men  represented  by  the  adjective,  and  the  men 
represented  by  the  verb;  the  one  are  the  sons 
of  nature,  the  other  the  sons  of  grace.  The 
Old  Gallery  represents  the  first;  upon  the  face 
of  its  portraits  is  stamped  the  impress  of  a  qual- 
ity. But  the  New  Gallery  opens  another  sphere. 
Here  the  faces  of  the  men  reveal,  not  the  quality, 


INTRODUCTION  ij 

but  the  action.  The  stamp  which  distinguishes 
these  is  not  so  much  a  possession  as  a  struggle. 
We  behold  some  of  them  advancing  to  the  bat- 
tle, some  in  the  heat  of  the  fight,  some  return- 
ing from  victory;  but  all  equally  give  the  im- 
pression of  a  life  being  moulded  by  conflict. 
The  watchword  of  this  gallery  is,  *  Ye  must  be- 
come as  little  children.  *  The  stress  lies  not  on 
the  word  *  children '  but  on  the  word  *  become. ' 
Childhood  is  a  natural  possession  of  all  men, 
and  its  flowers  may  grow  in  every  field.  But 
if  childhood  be  lost  and  won  again,  it  is  no  longer 
a  mere  gift  of  nature;  it  is  a  triumph  of  grace. 
It  is  a  pearl  of  great  price  from  the  simple  fact 
that  a  price  is  paid  for  it,  a  sacrifice  made  for 
it.  To  be  a  guileless  man  under  the  fig-tree 
may  be  beautiful,  but  it  is  the  beauty  of  a  star; 
to  be  guileless  amid  the  haunts  of  Nazareth,  is 
the  indication  of  a  higher  force  of  character — 
it  is  the  beauty  of  a  soul. 

It  may  seem  a  strange  thing  that  the  struggle 
should  have  come  in  an  age  of  peace.  The  dawn 
of  Christianity  was  on  a  summer  morning.  It 
came  when  the   political   sky  was  clear.     The 


14  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

songs  of  Bethlehem  that  proclaimed  goodwill 
among  men  had  already  in  a  measure  been  real- 
ised. The  earlier  ages  had  been  times  of  tur- 
bulence; the  immediately  succeeding  ages  were 
to  be  times  of  turbulence  again.  But  this  was  a 
calm  between  two  whirlwinds — short-lived,  but 
very  real.  Men  for  an  hour  had  beat  their 
swords  into  ploughshares  and  their  spears  into 
pruning-hooks,  and  it  seemed  to  many  as  if  they 
would  learn  the  art  of  war  no  more.  Such  was 
the  age  into  which  Christ  was  born.  Is  it  not  a 
singular  thing  that  this,  of  all  times,  should  have 
been  the  day  of  moral  struggle — the  day  when 
the  flowers  of  the  heart  did  not  spring  spon- 
taneously! We  should  have  expected  that  the 
years  of  war  would  have  been  the  years  of  moral 
crisis — that  the  hours  of  danger  and  terror  and 
sword  would  have  been  the  hours  in  which  the 
inward  lives  of  men  would  have  undergone  their 
vital  change. 

Yet,  in  this  Expectation,  I  think  we  are  guided 
by  an  erroneous  idea.  Is  it  the  case  that  the 
times  of  outward  war  are  the  times  of  inward 
conflict.^     I  do  not  think  so.     To  my  mind,  the 


INTRODUCTION  15 

struggles  of  the  soul  have  always  been  deepest 
in  the  ages  of  peace.  The  times  of  war  leave 
no  leisure  for  looking  within.  They  bring  forth 
brilliant  qualities,  but  they  bring  them  forth  with- 
out tillage,  and  they  maintain  them  without  the 
consciousness  of  their  possessor.  The  times  of 
physical  danger  are  like  the  mists  in  the  Book 
of  Genesis  which  were  sent  up  to  water  the 
ground.  They  indeed  water  the  ground,  but 
they  are  apt  to  hide  the  process  of  their  own 
working.  Before  a  man  can  look  into  himself, 
you  must  clear  away  the  outward  mist.  Danger 
is  unfavourable  to  introspection ;  even  a  boy  at 
school  will  forget  his  answer  if  you  hold  the  rod 
over  him.  The  truth  must  be  spoken:  Peace, 
and  not  war,  is  the  vivifier  of  this  world.  I 
used  to  think  it  an  anticlimax  when  I  read  the 
prophet's  longing  for  the  day  when  the  soldier 
should  become  a  ploughman;  but  that  was  be- 
cause I  thought  the  age  of  the  soldier  was  the 
age  of  deeper  evolution.  I  know  better  now. 
The  real  struggle  of  life  begins  when  the  mind  is 
at  leisure  from  its  surroundings.  It  is  when  a 
man  rests  from  his  outward  troubles  that  he  be- 


i6  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

gins  to  strive  with  himself.  Christ  said  that  He 
came  not  to  send  peace,  but  a  sword.  Yes ;  and 
He  sent  the  inward  sword  just  because  it  was 
a  time  of  outward  peace.  Had  Caesar  been  at 
war  with  the  world  Christ  could  never  have 
waged  war  in  the  soul.  The  war  in  the  soul 
demands  a  summer  day — a  day  in  which  we  are 
not  molested  from  without.  Christ  tells  His 
followers  to  pray  that  their  flight  be  not  in  the 
winter,  and  He  says  well.  Winter  drives  back 
into  the  old  path  and  arrests  the  upward  ten- 
dency. The  misfortunes  of  life  require  all  our 
energies  for  themselves;  to  turn  these  energies 
inward  we  need  a  voice  upon  the  outward  sea, 
•Peace,  be  still!* 

But  there  is  a  second  characteristic  of  this 
coming  Christian  age  which  is  well  worthy  of 
attention.  Not  only  is  it  to  be  a  period  of  in- 
ward transformation  but  of  rapid  transforma- 
tion. This  quality  of  the  Messianic  age  had 
been  anticipated  by  far-seeing  minds.  I  do  not 
think  we  attach  the  real  meaning  to  the  pro- 
phetic words  of  the  later  Isaiah,  *I  the  Lord 
will  hasten  it  in  its  time. '    We  commonly  under- 


INTRODUCTION  17 

stand  the  saying  to  mean  that  the  time  inter- 
vening till  the  Messiah  comes  will  be  short.  To 
my  mind,  that  is  not  what  the  Prophet  desires 
to  say.  I  understand  him  to  proclaim  his  convic- 
tion that  after  the  Messiah  has  come  things  will 
move  at  a  double-quick  march.  The  idea  is,  not 
that  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  will  be  acceler- 
ated, but  that,  when  the  kingdom  has  actually 
arisen,  there  will  be  times  of  acceleration.  It 
is  equivalent  to  saying,  *  In  the  days  of  the  Mes- 
siah God  will  cause  all  things  to  travel  at  a  rapid 
pace.'  Now,  we  all  know  that  there  are  times 
of  acceleration  in  the  history  of  this  world — 
times  in  which,  to  use  a  Bible  phrase,  a  nation  is 
born  in  a  day.  Events  to  which  we  looked  for- 
ward as  involving  the  march  of  centuries  are 
seen  to  spring  up  in  a  night.  Developments  of 
character  whose  completion  we  predicted  for 
the  end  of  years  are  effected  by  the  heat  of 
a  single  summer.  Lives  which  we  thought 
would  require  a  series  of  incarnations  to  per- 
fect them  are  made  to  flower  out  by  one 
drastic  experience,  and  the  work  which  nat- 
urally   would    have    belonged    to    days    is   fin- 


i8  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

ished  and  culminated  by  the    pressure   of   an 
hour. 

Now,  the  advent  of  Christ  is  one  of  these 
times.  It  is  a  season  of  accelerated  movements. 
The  men  of  the  Old  Testament  grow;  the 
men  of  the  New  flash.  For,  what  is  the  specta- 
cle which  the  Christian  Gallery  reveals  .<*  It  is 
a  series  of  figures  rapidly  discarding  their  original 
costume  and  appearing  in  a  garb  of  contrary 
mould.  We  catch  the  momentary  glimpse  of  a 
fiery  persecutor — it  is  Saul  of  Tarsus;  we  turn 
aside  for  an  instant,  and,  when  next  we  look,  we 
are  in  the  presence  of  a  son  of  charity.  We  see 
a  man  flying  from  the  post  of  duty  because  it  is 
the  post  of  danger — it  is  Simon  Peter ;  we  avert 
our  eyes  in  disgust.  The  next  moment  the  man 
stands  before  us  in  an  opposite  vesture:  in- 
stead of  shunning  duty  through  fear  of  danger, 
he  is  almost  making  danger  itself  a  duty.  We 
behold  a  rather  narrow  Churchman,  devoted  to 
externals  and  eager  for  ecclesiastical  power — it 
is  John,  son  of  Zebedee.  We  divert  our  gaze 
for  a  moment  toward  other  things.  By  and 
by  we  look  again,  and  lo,  the  man  has  lost  his 


INTRODUCTION 


19 


formalism,  lost  his  ecclesiasticism,  lost  his  pride, 
and  is  found  reclining  on  the  bosom  of  love ! 

How  shall  we  account  for  this?  Shall  we  say 
that  it  is  magical  ?  No ;  there  has  not  been  one 
step  omitted  from  the  process  of  normal  devel- 
opment. What  has  happened  is  that  the  develop- 
ment has  been  quickened.  The  stages  of  the 
process  have  not  been  abridged,  but  they  have 
been  hurried  on.  The  kindling  of  the  flower 
has  been  accelerated  by  the  influence  of  a  spe- 
cial atmosphere.  What  is  that  atmosphere? 
What  should  we  expect  it  to  he?  Do  we  know 
of  any  influence  which  has  a  special  power  of  ac- 
celerating .•*  Yes — the  contact  with  a  great  per- 
sonality. I  do  not  know  of  anything  in  the  world 
which  has  such  power  to  hasten  the  steps  of  the 
mind.  A  man  may  live  for  a  whole  lifetime 
amid  the  loveliest  and  grandest  scenery  the  eye 
can  dwell  on,  and  he  may  remain  at  the  end  as 
stolid,  as  dull,  as  lethargic  as  when  first  he  saw 
the  light.  But  let  that  man  meet  with  another 
man — a  higher  man,  a  man  of  piercing  brain  and 
potent  heart  and  mesmeric  attraction — you  will 
see  in  a  week  an  absolutely  radical  change.     The 


20  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

eye  will  glisten,  the  step  will  lighten,  the  face  will 
brighten ;  it  will  be  like  the  dawning  of  an  inward 
day.  Nature  has  lofty  thoughts  for  those  who 
are  already  lofty,  but  she  cannot  speak  down — 
cannot  address  her  message  to  a  dormant  mind. 
This  is  precisely  what  a  high  soul  ca7i  do.  The 
higher  it  is,  the  easier  for  that  soul  to  speak 
down.  The  deepest  student  of  a  subject  will 
best  educate  the  novice,  and  will  most  quickly 
educate  the  novice.  There  is  no  influence  so 
accelerating  as  a  human  influence;  one  day  in 
its  courts  is  better  than  a  thousand  days  in  the 
courts  of  visible  nature. 

And  the  men  of  Galilee  had  come  under  a  hu- 
man influence.  They  had  long  been  under  the 
influence  of  inspiring  scenery,  that  is  to  say,  of 
scenery  which  would  have  inspired  cultivated 
minds;  yet  it  had  failed  to  move  them  from 
their  rustic  apathy.  But  suddenly  a  man  ap- 
peared! In  the  midst  of  the  field  there  stood 
forth  an  extraordinary  presence!  We  may  call 
him  by  what  name  we  will — teacher,  preacher, 
reformer,  philanthropist;  his  immediate  influ- 
ence was  something  distinct  from  any  of  these. 


INTRODUCTION  21 

It  was  not  what  he  taught,  not  what  he  preached, 
not  what  he  amended ;  it  was  his  creation  of  the 
sense  of  wonder.  Human  intelligence  begins 
not  with  an  act  of  understanding,  but  with  the 
feeling  that  there  is  something  which  is  not  un- 
derstood. The  first  step  in  every  upward  devel- 
opment is  the  sense  of  wonder;  until  that  has 
come,  we  are  dormant.  The  earliest  power  of 
Jesus  was  His  waking  the  men  of  Galilee  to  won- 
der. He  did  for  these  men  what  the  hills  could 
not  do,  what  the  woods  could  not  do,  what  the 
stars  could  not  do;  He  made  them  ask  ques- 
tions. It  is  the  question,  not  the  answer,  that 
is  the  note  of  dawn.  My  milestones  lie  in  my 
mysteries — not  in  my  acquirements.  Galilee 
struck  a  new  hour  when  it  cried,  *What  man- 
ner of  man  is  this ! '  It  knocked  at  its  first  gate 
of  wonder.  It  learned  for  the  first  time  that 
there  was  something  it  could  see  and  not  per- 
ceive, something  it  could  hear  and  not  under- 
stand. That  sense  of  ignorance  was  worth  all 
the  knowledge  in  the  world.  It  was  the  first 
leap  out  of  the  darkness,  the  earliest  emergence 
into  light.     The  dove  had  begun  to  move  on  the 


22  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

face  of  the  waters,  and  its  very  unrest  suggested 
the  promise  of  a  new  land. 

SON  of  Man,  Thou  hast  the  key  to  the  Sec- 
ond Gallery — nay.  Thou  art  the  key!  In 
Thee  alone  I  learn  the  secret  of  the  world's  un- 
rest. Thou  Thyself  art  the  secret.  We  speak 
of  the  waters  being  stilled  by  Thy  coming ;  nay, 
it  was  Thy  coming  that  stirred  the  waters. 
The  faces  of  the  New  Gallery  through  which 
I  am  to  pass  are  all  the  faces  of  struggling  men ; 
but  their  struggle  comes  from  light,  not  dark- 
ness; they  have  seen  Thee!  They  have  lost 
their  primitive  satisfaction.  There  is  a  far 
look-out  in  the  eyes,  as  if  they  sought  some- 
thing not  here,  as  if  they  heard  the  murmuring 
of  a  distant  sea.  It  is  because  they  have  seen 
Thee!  Thy  glory  has  left  a  cloud  upon  the 
common  day.  The  lily  of  the  field  is  less  fair. 
The  song  of  the  bird  is  less  buoyant.  The  scent 
of  the  hay  is  less  sweet.  The  blue  of  the  sky  is 
less  pure.  The  bosom  of  the  sea  is  less  calm. 
It  is  all  from  sight  of  Thee!  Thy  sheen  has 
thrown  all  things  into  shade.     Thy  radiance  has 


INTRODUCTION  23 

broken  their  rest.  Thy  beauty  has  tarnished 
their  beam.  Thy  sweetness  has  blunted  their 
savour.  They  have  faded  in  front  of  Thy  flow- 
er; they  have  vanished  in  touch  of  Thy  voice; 
they  have  paled  in  the  power  of  Thy  presence; 
they  have  melted  in  the  blaze  of  Thy  music. 
The  men  of  this  New  Gallery  are  less  content 
with  wood  and  field ;  but  it  is  because  their  eyes 
have  gazed  on  a  higher  loveliness — the  bright- 
ness of  Thy  face ! 


CHAPTER  II 

JOHN   THE   EXPANDED 

On  the  threshold  of  the  New  Gallery  we  are 
met  by  a  portentous  figure  popularly  known  as 
John  the  Baptist.  He  was  the  earliest  product 
of  the  influence  of  that  Great  Light  which  was 
about  to  transform  the  world.  In  order  of  time 
he  is  the  first  Christian.  He  discerned  the  great- 
ness of  Jesus  when,  outwardly,  Jesus  was  not 
great.  He  was  the  earliest  who  fixed  his  eyes 
upon  the  miracle  of  Christ's  character.  Nay, 
I  am  disposed  to  go  further;  with  the  excep- 
tion, I  think,  of  Thomas,  he  is  probably  the  only 
man  of  the  primitive  band  who  was  originally 
attracted  to  Jesus  by  the  beauty  of  His  moral 
nature  alone.  Neither  Peter  nor  James  nor 
the  other  John  nor  Andrew  nor  Philip  nor  Na- 
thanael  seems  to  have  been  at  first  so  attracted ; 

they  embraced  the  hope  of  a  physical  Messiah. 
24 


JOHN  THE  EXPANDED  25 

But  this  man  cried,  '  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God !  * 
It  was  indeed  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness. 
There  were  very  few  in  the  age  of  Jesus  who 
could  appreciate  the  miracle  of  a  sinless  life. 
Show  them  a  wonderful  boy  in  the  home  of  Naz- 
areth— a  boy  who  can  tell  thoughts  before  they 
are  spoken,  calculate  figures  as  soon  as  they 
are  stated,  get  answers  to  prayers  the  instant 
they  are  offered — the  home  of  Nazareth  will  be 
thronged  to  suffocation.  But  tell  them  that  with- 
in that  house  there  lives  a  thoroughly  good  child, 
a  child  of  unique  goodness  —  tell  them  that 
through  all  the  years  of  his  consciousness  he 
has  never  been  known  to  depart  from  a  lamblike 
gentleness,  never  been  seen  to  deviate  from  a 
pure  affection,  never  been  observed  to  waver  in 
an  unselfish  spirit — ^you  will  attract  no  crowd 
around  the  cottage  door.  The  traveller  will 
pause  not  to  wonder,  the  spectator  will  wait  not 
to  verify ;  it  will  seem  to  the  world  an  ordinary, 
a  commonplace  thing. 

It  is  the  glory  of  John  the  Baptist  that  he  per- 
ceived the  miracle  of  Nazareth.  This  man  saw 
the  wonder  precisely  in  the  one  spot  where  his 


26  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

contemporaries  could  see  nothing.  Alone  of 
all  the  men  in  the  New  Gallery  this  man  is  first 
attracted  and  dominated  by  that  life  of  Christ 
which  preceded  outward  wonders — His  Hfe  in  the 
home.  He  had  seen  no  outpouring  of  the  wine 
at  Cana.  He  had  beheld  no  cleansing  of  the 
temple  at  Jerusalem.  He  had  witnessed  no  heal- 
ing at  the  pool  of  Bethesda.  He  had  experi- 
enced no  glimmer  of  glory  on  the  Mount  of 
Transfiguration.  He  had  not  even  listened  to 
the  words  of  wisdom  which  have  immortalised 
the  Hill  of  Hermon.  His  vision  was  only  of 
the  child.'  The  spirit  of  Jesus  had  to  him  taken 
the  form  of  a  dove.  The  kingdom  of  Christ 
which  he  had  seen  was  the  kingdom  over  Him- 
self in  the  nursery.  He  had  marked  Him  out 
as  the  future  Messiah  on  altogether  unique 
grounds.  He  had  demanded  a  test  that  could 
be  fulfilled  in  Nazareth.  He  had  asked  no  prod- 
igies. He  had  exacted  no  feats  of  prowess.  He 
had  required  no  evidence  of  supernatural  knowl- 
edge.    He  had  asked  sinlessness — a  blameless 

'  He  seems,  on  account  of  his  desert  life,  to  have  lost 
sight  of  Him  in  His  manhood  ;  see  John  i.  33. 


JOHN  THE  EXPANDED  27 

record  in  the  cottage  home.  By  His  sustaining 
of  that  test,  by  His  ability  to  pass  through  that 
ordeal,  the  Christ  of  the  Baptist  should  stand  or 
fall. 

I  have  laid  great  stress  on  this  point  because, 
if  I  am  not  mistaken,  we  are  often  prone  to  take 
an  erroneous  view  of  John  the  Baptist.  We 
figure  a  wild  man  of  the  woods,  half  savage  and 
wholly  physical — a  man  whose  Christ  was  of 
the  earth  earthy,  whose  hopes  were  centred  on 
an  outward  glory,  whose  cry  was  for  the  carnal, 
whose  faith  was  in  the  flesh.  We  think  of  him 
with  a  kindly  patronage — as  wonderfully  good 
for  the  dawn.  We  insist  on  allowance  being 
made  for  him.  It  would  be  too  bad,  we  say,  to 
compare  his  rise  with  the  rising  of  such  lights 
as  Peter  and  the  sons  of  Zebedee.  These  men 
saw  the  Christ  full-grown;  this  man  had  only 
the  tradition  of  His  Nazareth;  how  can  we 
expect  the  summer  from  the  spring,  why  look 
to  dawn  for  the  brightness  of  the  day ! 

Now,  on  such  an  opinion  the  view  I  have  been 
advocating  falls  like  a  clap  of  thunder.  For,  ac- 
cording to  my  reading  of  John  the  Baptist,  this 


28  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

representative  of  the  earliest  Christianity  is  the 
least  primitive  of  all  the  Christians.  So  far 
from  contrasting  unfavourably  v^ith  the  apostles, 
he  actually  begins  where  they  end.  The  latest 
word  of  these  apostles  is  not  the  outward  miracle 
but  the  blameless  life;  it  may  be  said  of  every 
one  of  them  that  to  their  autumn  years  *the 
Lamb  is  all  the  glory.'  But  that  can  be  said 
of  the  Baptist's  spring.  He  antedated  their 
experience.  While  they  were  hunting  after  a 
sign  of  the  flesh,  he  was  pursuing  a  sign  of  the 
spirit.  While  they  sought  an  eagle,  he  followed 
the  track  of  a  dove.  While  they  waited  for  the 
strength  of  a  lion,  he  placed  all  his  hopes  in  the 
spotlessness  of  a  lamb. 

The  truth  is,  the  original  defect  of  John  the 
Baptist  was  of  exactly  the  opposite  nature  to 
that  commonly  attributed  to  him.  So  far  from 
beginning  as  a  wild  man  of  the  woods,  the  thing 
he  lacked  was  just  the  forest  freedom.  In  his 
morning  he  was  no  son  of  liberty.  He  had  the 
most  exalted  view  of  what  it  is  to  be  a  Christian 
— a  more  exalted  view  than  any  of  his  contempo- 
raries;  but  for  that  very  reason  he  would  make 


JOHN  THE  EXPANDED  29 

no  allowances.  He  was  a  red-hot  revivalist, 
and  his  revivalism  admitted  no  compromise. 
What  he  required  was  not  enlightenment;  it 
was  expansion.  Strange  as  it  may  seem,  I 
hold  that  what  all  religious  youth  requires  is 
not  enlightenment  but  expansion.  We  think  of 
youth  as  the  bird  of  the  wilderness  flying  reck- 
less from  bough  to  bough  and  destined  to  get  its 
wings  clipped  in  the  zenith  of  the  day.  That  is 
a  very  good  picture  of  physical  youth,  but  it  is 
not  religious  youth.  Religious  youth  has  exact- 
ly the  opposite  development.  It  is  no  bird  of  the 
wilderness;  it  is  afraid  to  fly.  It  is  too  intense 
to  be  broad;  it  settles  on  a  branch  and  dwells 
there.  It  sees  the  fire  burning  in  a  single  bush ; 
it  hears  the  voice  calling  from  only  one  tree. 
Its  wings  may  be  expected  to-morrow,  but  its 
weights  are  for  to-day.  Its  path  is  a  narrow 
path,  its  view  is  a  limited  view;  it  sees  through 
a  glass  darkly  and  it  thinks  it  sees  in  full. 

There  are,  in  my  opinion,  two  characteristics 
of  the  narrowness  of  religious  youth,  and  they 
are  both  found  in  this  figure  of  the  Baptist.  The 
first  I  would  describe  as  the  inability  to  wait,  in 


30  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

other  words,  a  tendency  to  see  the  future  with- 
out intermediate  view.  This  man  points  to  his 
Christ  and  cries,  'His  fan  is  in  His  hand!' — 
ready  to  be  used.  Youth  habitually  scorns  the 
intermediate.  It  is  commonly  reckoned  a  proof 
of  its  expansiveness.  In  truth  it  is  the  reverse; 
it  is  its  inability  to  fix  the  eye  on  any  point  but 
one.  When  a  child  cries,  *Not  to-morrow,  nor 
to-morrow,  nor  to-morrow,  but  the  next  day!* 
what  does  it  mean.?  It  is  really  making  an  at- 
tempt to  annihilate  from  its  thought  the  interme- 
diate days  as  if  they  were  so  much  useless  lum- 
ber. That  little  word  *not*  is  equivalent  to  a 
suppression.  It  declares  that  the  days  between 
Monday  and  Friday  are  to  be  discounted,  ig- 
nored, put  on  one  side,  and  that  the  string  of 
hope  should  draw  the  ends  so  close  together  as 
to  prevent  the  impression  of  anything  interme- 
diate at  all. 

And  this  is  the  initial  position  of  John  the 
Baptist.  He  has  a  child's  inability  to  wait.  His 
conception  of  the  Messiah  is  beautiful  beyond  his 
time;  but  his  conception  of  the  Messiah's  fan 
is  premature.     When  the  hills  look  too  near, 


JOHN  THE  EXPANDED  31 

there  will  be  rain.  I  am  afraidt  his  great  revival 
preacher  is  preparing  for  himself  a  harvest  of 
tears.  It  is  grandly  exciting,  no  doubt,  to  see 
the  masses  vibrating  to  the  message  that  the  fan 
is  already  in  the  hand.  But  the  fan  is  in  reality 
not  yet  within  the  grasp  of  the  Christ.  To  the 
eye  of  the  Baptist  the  hills  look  wonderfully 
near,  but  the  deception  will  ere  long  reveal  itself. 
When  he  stands  in  the  midst  of  the  crowd  and 
cries,  *  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God!'  he  is  on 
strong  and  trenchant  ground ;  but  when  he  pre- 
dicts the  immediate  diffusion  of  the  Lamb's 
purity,  he  is  skating  on  thin  ice.  His  hearers 
may  be  enraptured  to-day,  but  they  will  be  anx- 
ious to-morrow  and  downcast  the  day  after. 
The  Baptist  has  promised  too  much.  He  has 
held  up  the  Messiah's  winnowing  fan  in  the 
light  of  the  coming  Sabbath — has  held  it  so  as 
to  exclude  the  light  of  all  intermediate  days. 
He  has  excluded  that  light  from  himself  as  much 
as  from  his  hearers.  He  has  taken  the  child's 
leap,  that  leap  which  indicates  not  breadth  but 
narrowness — the  exclusive  concentration  of  the 
eye  upon  the  lamp  farthest  away. 


32  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

But  there  is  a  second  characteristic  of  religious 
youth,  and  it  also  is  exemplified  in  this  great  re- 
vival preacher.  Religious  youth  is  distinctly 
uncompromising.  It  never  admits  the  possibil- 
ity of  any  shades  of  opinion.  A  thing  is  either 
white  or  black,  good  or  bad,  lovely  or  de- 
formed. This  is  a  tendency,  indeed,  pertaining 
more  or  less  to  childhood  in  general.  The  aver- 
age child  has  no  degrees  in  his  love.  His  heart 
is  a  clock  where  only  two  hours  are  indicated 
— twelve  noon  and  twelve  midnight.  Ask  if 
he  likes  any  one;  you  will  get  an  unqualified 
yes  or  no.  We  are  in  the  habit  of  adducing  this 
as  evidence  of  the  child's  outspokenness.  But 
in  truth  the  problem  lies,  not  in  speaking  out, 
nor,  for  that  matter,  in  speaking  at  all.  It  lies  in 
the  fact  that  the  incipient  mind  is  the  imperative 
mind.  I  do  not  think  it  is  a  mark  of  strength, 
but  the  reverse;  it  indicates,  not  breadth,  but 
narrowness.  It  implies  a  limit  in  judgment,  as 
the  previous  tendency  implied  a  limit  in  imag- 
ination. It  is  a  mark  of  crudeness  and  non- 
development;  yet  it  is  capable  of  existing  side 
by  side  with  the  most  exalted  idea  of  purity. 


JOHN  THE  EXPANDED  33 

Now,  the  preacher  on  the  banks  of  Jordan 
revealed  in  pronounced  colours  this  uncompro- 
mising spirit  of  youth.  He  denied  the  interme- 
diate shades  between  night  and  day.  Not  only 
was  the  Messiah's  fan  already  in  the  hand;  it 
was  to  be  used  drastically.  *  He  will  thoroughly 
purge  His  floor,  and  gather  His  wheat  into  the 
garner;  but  He  will  burn  up  the  chaff  with  un- 
quenchable fire.*  The  Baptist  is  in  the  same  po- 
sition as  the  servants  of  Christ's  parable.  They 
wanted  to  consume  the  tares  immediately, 
*Wilt  Thou  that  we  go  and  gather  them  up.?' 
You  will  remerpber  the  answer  was.  No ;  and  you 
will  remember  why — 'Lest  while  ye  gather  up 
the  tares  ye  root  up  also  the  wheat  with  them.' 
In  nothing  does  the  wisdom  of  Christ  shine  so 
resplendent  over  the  wisdom  of  John.  John 
thought  there  were  two  sets  of  men — one  good 
and  the  other  bad ;  to  Christ  the  good  and  the  bad 
nestled  in  one  soul.  John  thought  a  fire  would 
do  all  that  was  wanted ;  Christ  feared  it  might  do 
more  than  was  wanted.  John  said,  *If  a  man 
show  stubbornness  of  will,  beat  it  out  of  him ' ; 
Christ  cried,    *Not  so;    you  will  beat  out  not 


34  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

only  the  stubbornness  but  the  will  itself — will 
reduce  the  man  to  a  state  of  passive  imbecility 
where  decision  is  hopeless  and  choice  is  im- 
possible.' John  proposed  to  kill  evil  passion  by 
putting  an  axe  at  the  root  of  the  tree;  Christ 
said,  '  The  root  of  the  tree  is  not  evil  passion  but 
good  passion;  would  you  make  it  impossible  to 
sin  by  making  it  impossible  to  feel!  would  you 
debar  from  scenes  of  badness  by  debarring  from 
the  sense  of  sight !  would  you  cure  the  tempta- 
tion of  the  heart  by  making  the  heart  a  stone ! ' 

This,  then,  is  the  earliest  aspect  of  John  the 
Baptist — the  fiery  preacher  of  a  very  high  Chris- 
tianity— incapable  of  compromise,  intolerant  of 
middle  courses,  eager  to  reduce  the  outside  uni- 
verse into  two  hemispheres — heaven  and  hell ! 
Take  a  parting  look  at  the  man !  You  will  never 
see  him  again  in  this  attitude.  Something  is 
going  to  happen,  the  curtain  is  about  to  fall. 
With  all  its  intolerance,  with  all  its  uncompro- 
misingness,  with  all  its  repelling  severity,  there 
is  something  in  this  figure  transcendently  grand. 
As  it  sways  to  and  fro  on  the  banks  of  Jordan, 
shaken  with  the  pulsations  of  its  own  eloquence 


JOHN  THE  EXPANDED  35 

— ^as  it  breaks  forth,  now  in  passionate  invective, 
now  in  earnest  pleading,  now  in  prophetic  fer- 
vour— I  wonder  not  that  the  crowds  listen  and 
tremble.  It  is  a  soul  walking  on  a  narrow  plank ; 
but  on  that  plank  he  walks  with  dauntless  foot. 
The  man  speaks  with  conviction ;  and  his  convic- 
tion is  his  power.  Alone  of  all  the  world  he  has 
seen  the  King  in  His  moral  beauty — has  recog- 
nised that  lamblike  whiteness  is  better  than  im- 
perial purple.  Basking  in  that  fair  ideal  of  a 
spotless  Christ,  he  demands  a  spotless  world — 
demands  it  now,  here,  immediately.  If  the  ac- 
ceptance of  Christ  meant  a  change  of  outward 
government,  men  might  be  allowed  to  linger; 
but  the  acceptance  of  Christ  meant  purity,  holi- 
ness, goodness — all  that  lies  within  a  man's  own 
heart,  ready  for  the  waking  touch  of  God.  This 
was  a  kingdom  that  needed  no  armies  nor  weap- 
ons nor  fortresses;  why  should  it  not  come  to- 
morrow, to-day,  this  hour ! 

So  thought,  so  spake,  John  Baptist  in  the 
morning.  But  now,  as  I  have  said,  the  scene  is 
about  to  vanish.  Even  as  we  gaze,  the  picture 
melts  like  snow.     Jordan   suddenly  disappears; 


36  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

the  voice  of  the  preacher  fades ;  the  crowd  upon 
the  bank  evaporates  as  a  stream  of  limehghts, 
and,  where  the  hum  of  life  resounded,  univer- 
sal silence  reigns.  We  are  on  the  borders  of  a 
great  tragedy — one  of  the  greatest  tragedies  in 
history.  But  what  is  that  tragedy.?  Perhaps 
there  are  few  of  us  who  have  realised  where  con- 
sists the  dramatic  horror  of  the  situation.  Ask 
a  Sunday-school  child  what  was  the  tragedy  that 
befell  John  the  Baptist,  he  will  answer  without 
hesitation,  '  In  the  course  of  his  teaching  he  de- 
nounced an  illegal  marriage  of  Herod,  who  put 
him  in  prison  and  caused  him  to  be  beheaded.' 
And  yet,  that  is  not  the  dramatic  element  in  the 
case  of  the  Baptist.  That  was  a  tragedy  to  the 
man,  but  not  to  the  preacher,  not  to  the  reform- 
er, not  to  the  Christian  forerunner.  What  was 
the  tragedy  to  Sir  Walter  Scott .?  The  loss  of  his 
money.'*  Assuredly  not;  that  might  happen  to 
the  most  undistinguished  man.  But  when  Scott 
faded  in  mind,  when  his  powers  became  para- 
lysed, when  his  right  hand  lost  its  cunning  and  his 
mighty  brain  ceased  to  be  a  highway  for  the  na- 
tions, then  came  the  real  tragedy.     It  was  not 


JOHN  THE  EXPANDED  37 

genius  parting  with  money ;   it  was  genius  part- 
ing with  itself. 

The  Baptist's  tragedy  was  analogous  to  this. 
It  was  not  his  prison;  it  was  not  his  peril;  it 
was  not  his  martyrdom — it  was  the  fact  that  he 
wavered  in  his  first  faith.  From  the  depths  of 
his  dungeon  he  sends  a  message  to  the  ideal  of 
his  dreams,  'Art  Thou  He  that  should  come,  or 
do  we  look  for  another } '  Nothing,  to  my  mind, 
in  the  whole  history  of  the  Baptist  is  half  so 
tragical  as  that.  And  why.?  Because  it  is  the 
man  parting  from  his  innermost  self.  It  is  as 
if  Shakespeare  had  lost  his  passion,  as  if  Tenny- 
son had  lost  his  culture,  as  if  Keats  had  lost  his 
colouring.  If  this  man  had  kept  his  confidence 
undimmed  we  should  have  looked  in  vain  for  the 
element  of  tragedy;  not  the  dungeon,  not  the 
persecution  by  Herod,  not  the  axe  of  the  heads- 
man, could  have  made  the  final  scene  other  than 
glorious.  But  when  a  cloud  fell  over  his  inner- 
most self,  when  in  the  flood  he  lost  sight  of  the 
bow,  when  his  /aM  wavered,  when  his  one 
strong  and  seemingly  invincible  possession  re- 
ceived damage  on  a  rock  of  earth — this  is  the 


38  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

crisis  of  the  drama,  this  is  the  tragedy  of  the 
scene ! 

Has  the  Gallery,  then,  here  committed  a 
breach  of  art?  Ought  the  hero  to  lose  his  par- 
ticular point  of  heroism?  We  can  understand 
misfortune,  struggle,  death;  these  may  only 
brighten  the  man's  special  beauty.  But  that  the 
special  beauty  itself  should  be  falsified,  that 
the  hero  should  be  untrue  to  his  own  soul,  that 
the  curtain  should  fall  precisely  where  his  lofty 
ideal  falls — is  that  a  stroke  worthy  of  artistic  en- 
thusiasm! Is  it  not  specially  unsNOxXhy  of  that 
great  Christian  art  whose  aim  is  not  to  destroy 
but  to  fulfil,  and  which  finds  its  highest  glory 
when  it  gathers  up  the  fragments  that  remain ! 

In  this  instance  I  do  not  hesitate  to  answer. 
No.  I  say  that  nowhere  has  Christianity  been 
more  optimistic  than  in  allowing  the  Baptist's 
faith  to  fail.  No  other  stroke  would  have  im- 
parted full  glory  to  the  picture.  What  is  it  that 
the  Baptist  lacks  throughout?  It  is  expansion. 
His  taint  is  narrowness.  His  ideal  of  Christ  was 
magnificent,  unique  among  his  contemporaries. 
But  he  insisted  that  this  ideal  should  become 


JOHN  THE  EXPANDED.  39 

the  immediate  possession  of  the  world.  He  had 
no  place  for  the  wavering,  no  provision  for  the 
stunted,  no  tenderness  for  the  specially  tempted. 
What  this  man  needed  was  charity — a  deeper 
sympathy  with  the  infirmities  of  man.  And  how 
was  he  to  get  it.^  How  is  any  man  to  get  it.^ 
I  know  of  only  one  way — ^he  must  be  depressed 
in  his  strong  point.  Touch  him  in  any  other 
point,  and  you  will  fail.  But  touch  him  where 
he  is  strong,  shake  him  where  he  has  been  im- 
movable, and  you  open  the  first  inlet  for  the 
entrance  of  human  charity.  The  shaking  of 
John's  faith  was  a  process  preparatory  to  his 
spiritual  expansion.  It  prepared  him  for  the  an- 
swer he  was  about  to  receive.  He  had  sent  a  mes- 
sage to  Jesus,  *Art  Thou  He  that  should  come.'** 
The  reply  was  on  the  way,  and  it  was  virtu- 
ally an  exhortation  to  remember  human  frailty. 
Let  me  try  to  paraphrase  this  reply  of  Jesus. 

*John,  it  is  just  because  I  do  not  follow  your 
method  that  I  am  He  that  should  come.  Your 
method  is  a  drastic  one.  You  want  to  begin 
by  clearing  out  the  chaff.  You  want  me,  when 
I  enter  the  threshing-floor,  to  look  round  and  be 


40  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

impressed  with  the  absolute  purity  of  all  things. 
You  want  me  to  be  able  to  say,  "I  see  no  blind 
here,  no  lame,  no  leper,  no  deaf,  no  dead  in  tres- 
passes and  sin,  no  poor  and  ignorant  requiring  to 
be  preached  to;  it  is  all  radiant  as  a  summer 
day."  But,  my  friend,  when  I  come  into  the 
threshing-floor,  that  is  not  what  I  want  to  see. 
I  wish  to  see  the  contrary.  I  wish  to  look  round 
and  see  in  the  foreground  the  very  men  you  have 
put  out — the  blind,  the  lame,  the  leper,  the  deaf, 
the  spiritually  dead,  the  poor  and  ignorant.  I 
would  have  all  these  cleansed,  but  I  would  have 
them  cleansed  from  the  inside.  I  demand  not 
that  the  blind  should  see  before  they  climb  the 
mountain;  I  ask  not  that  the  lame  should  leap 
ere  they  enter  by  the  Beautiful  Gate.  Let  there 
be  no  separation  between  the  wheat  and  the  chaff ; 
gather  them  both  into  my  garner  and  let  me 
meet  them  there!  Bring  in  Bartimeus;  bring 
in  the  man  of  Bethesda;  bring  in  the  typical 
Magdalene ;  bring  in  the  leper  from  the  tombs ! 
I  shall  meet  the  crowd  as  they  are — unwashed, 
uncleansed,  unbeautified;  in  their  rags  and 
ruin  will  I  give  them  my  hand. ' 


JOHN  THE  EXPANDED  41 

That  is  a  real  paraphrase  of  the  message  from 
Jesus  to  John.  And  remember,  when  it  came  to 
John  it  came  to  a  broken-down  man — a  man 
who  had  been  shaken  in  the  sphere  of  his  proud- 
est confidence.  What  a  magnificent  preparation 
for  so  grand  a  message !  There  was  a  time  when 
John  would  have  scorned  to  let  Bartimeus  in ;  but 
now  his  own  eye  had  become  dim.  There  was  a 
time  when  he  would  have  resented  the  admission 
of  the  man  of  Bethesda;  but  now  his  own  feet 
had  become  weary.  For  the  first  moment  in  his 
life  he  felt  himself  part  of  that  chaff  which  he  had 
consigned  to  everlasting  fire.  There  sprang  up 
in  his  soul  a  fellow-feeling  with  infirmity.  The 
ingathering  of  the  wheat  ceased  to  be  the  mark 
of  Messianic  greatness.  To  take  up  tenderly  the 
withered  flower,  to  plant  again  the  fallen  tree, 
to  bind  the  heart  that  had  been  wounded,  to  raise 
the  soul  that  had  been  bruised,  to  give  a  chance 
to  the  reprobate,  to  find  a  fresh  start  for  the 
children  of  a  corrupt  heredity,  to  proclaim  a  new 
year  in  which  the  darkest  life  might  begin  once 
more — such  was  that  unique  ideal  of  heroism 
which  gave  to  the  dungeon  of  John's  closing  days 


42  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

a  light  of  glory  which  his  brightest  morning  had 
never  known! 

I  think,  then,  that  the  grandest  period  of  the 
Baptist's  life  was  not  the  days  of  his  wilder- 
ness freedom,  but  that  lonely  prison-house  from 
which  he  only  came  forth  to  die.  The  hour  of 
his  physical  chain  was  the  hour  of  his  mental  en- 
franchisement. His  morning  was  cribbed,  cab- 
ined, and  confined.  He  was  like  a  man  that 
never  had  an  illness.  He  had  no  sympathy  with 
bad  health.  His  besetting  weakness  was  his 
robust  constitution.  He  could  not  make  allow- 
ance for  aches  and  pains,  for  reaction  and  weari- 
ness. He  needed  a  special  gift  from  God,  and 
that  special  gift  was  a  privation.  Nothing  but 
a  privation  could  set  the  captive  free — could 
unbar  those  gates  of  sympathy  whose  closure 
made  life  to  him  a  desert.  But  at  his  evening- 
time  there  came  that  light.  It  was  not  the  dun- 
geon brought  it;  it  was  the  shaking  of  his  faith 
in  his  own  robustness.  That  shaking  was  like 
the  cloud  on  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration.  It 
removed  Moses  and  Elias  and  revealed  Jesus 
only.     The  man  of  law  and  the  man  of  fire  both 


JOHN  THE  EXPANDED  43 

faded  from  his  horizon,  and  by  his  side  there 
stood  in  undisputed  presence  the  Man  of  Mercy. 
Sinai  vanished  Uke  smoke ;  Carmel  melted  like  a 
mimic  scene ;  and,  in  all  the  vast  expanse,  the  eye 
of  the  great  preacher  rested  on  one  solitary  hill 
—  the  love -lit  brow  of  Calvary.  With  such  a 
vision  in  his  soul  the  Baptist  could  afford  to  die. 

LORD,  mine  too  has  been  this  expansion  of 
the  inward  life.  It  is  the  greatest  boon  a 
human  heart  can  know.  And  yet,  my  Father,  to 
me,  as  to  the  Baptist,  it  has  come  through  pain. 
He  thought  his  was  an  hour  of  mutilation,  of  in- 
firmity, of  bondage;  he  bewailed  the  cloud  that 
had  fallen  over  his  faith.  But  the  cloud  was  sent 
by  Thee.  Sometimes  my  faith  needs  a  cloud. 
I  may  find  it  so  dazzling  that  I  may  be  blind 
to  hope  and  charity.  I  may  cry,  *  Destroy  the 
unbelievers,  O  God;  root  them  out,  consume 
them,  annihilate  them ! '  When  I  say  that.  Thou 
sendest  my  faith  a  cloud.  Thou  veilest  the 
heavens  over  Jordan;  Thou  hidest  the  dove 
descending;  Thou  utterest  no  more  the  voice 
of  the  morning.     Thou  makest  me  say,    *I  see 


44  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

it  is  a  harder  thing  than  I  thought  to  be  a  be- 
Hever;  I  have  been  too  severe  upon  my  brother- 
man.'  I  bless  Thee  for  these  ecHpsing  mo- 
ments, O  my  God.  I  bless  Thee  that  I  have 
been  touched  with  the  feeling  of  man's  infirm- 
ities. I  bless  Thee  that  Thou  hast  put  a  tem- 
porary veil  over  the  face  of  faith;  it  has  un- 
veiled  her  two  sisters — hope  and  charity.  When 
my  sky  was  cloudless  I  despaired  of  those  who 
could  not  see ;  when  my  faith  was  fearless  I  was 
wroth  with  those  who  could  not  believe.  But 
my  tremor  has  made  me  tender,  my  mist  has 
made  me  merciful,  my  haze  has  made  me  hu- 
man. I  have  gained  more  in  my  night  than  in 
my  day.  In  my  day  I  soared  beyond  sympathy ; 
in  my  night  I  caught  my  brother's  hand.  In  my 
day  I  was  solitary  on  the  wing ;  in  my  night  I 
had  companionship  through  weakness.  In  my 
day  I  believed  only  in  the  wheat ;  in  my  night  I 
had  a  kindness  for  the  chaff.  In  my  day  I  had 
the  feeling  of  a  lonely  majesty;  in  my  night  I 
had  the  fellowship  of  a  common  mystery.  It 
was  worth  while,  O  Lord,  to  wear  a  chain  so 
golden ! 


CHAPTER  III 

JOHN   THE   SELF-SURRENDERED 

As  I  pass  from  the  figure  of  the  Baptist  I  am  ar- 
rested by  two  other  portraits  hanging  side  by 
side.  The  bystanders  tell  me  that  they  are  in- 
tended to  represent  one  and  the  same  character 
— John,  Son  of  Zebedee.  One  of  the  portraits, 
indeed,  admits  of  no  doubt  on  this  point;  it  has 
the  name  *John,  Son  of  Zebedee'  appended  to  it. 
The  other  has  no  title,  no  inscription;  but  all 
the  spectators  say  with  one  breath,  *That  is 
another  likeness  of  John.'  As  I  look  into  the 
faces  of  these  two  portraits  I  am  by  and  by 
startled — not  by  their  likeness  but  by  their  dis- 
proportion. They  are  altogether  dissimilar.  It 
is  not  a  question  of  light  hair  or  dark,  pale 
cheeks  or  rosy.  It  is  a  difference  more  vital  than 
that — a  difference  of  expression.  The  professed 
Son  of  Zebedee  has  an  air  of  self-consciousness 

about  him.     I  do  not  say  he  is  selfish;    but  he 
45 


46  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

is  self-conscious.  He  is  playing  a  noble  part; 
but  he  is  aware  that  he  plays  it.  In  a  more  pro- 
nounced sense  than  Peter  he  has  a  tendency  to 
take  the  lead.  He  makes  a  bid  for  one  of  the 
two  uppermost  seats  in  the  Messianic  King- 
dom. He  takes  a  portion  of  Christ's  government 
into  his  own  hands  in  the  meantime — he  inter- 
rupts on  his  own  account  the  charities  of  a  man 
who  refused  to  take  the  name  of  Christian.  He 
comes  forward  as  spokesman  when  a  Samari- 
tan village  shuts  its  gates — he  counsels  a  return 
to  the  old  policy  of  fire  and  sword.  There  are 
circumstances  in  his  life  which  are  favourable 
to  self -consciousness.  He  is  not  so  poor  as  the 
other  disciples.  He  has  more  outlets  to  worldly 
influence  than  his  Galilean  brethren — even  the 
High  Priest  Caiaphas  has  a  knowledge  of  him. 
Above  all,  he  is  a  mother's  darling — the  child  of 
one  who  rates  him  far  beyond  his  present  merits, 
who  thinks  him  good  enough  for  anything,  and 
who  is  eagerly  ambitious  to  advance  his  interests.' 

^  Her  ambition,  however,  was  only  maternal ;  her  per- 
sonal attitude  to  Christ  was  most  unworldly  (Matt,  xxvii. 
56  •,  Mark  xv.  40,  and  xvi.  i). 


JOHN  THE  SELF-SURRENDERED       47 

There  is  no  mirror  which  a  young  man  should 
subject  to  such  close  criticism  as  that  which 
reflects  a  mother's  heart.  On  the  whole,  the 
impression  conveyed  to  my  mind  by  this  por- 
trait of  the  professed  Son  of  Zebedee  is  that  of 
a  misguided  and  spoiled  boy. 

But  turn  now  to  the  other,  the  nameless  pic- 
ture. It  is  a  complete  contrast.  If  the  former 
was  self-conscious,  this  is  self-forgetting.  We 
look  into  a  face  whose  own  look  is  far  away. 
We  feel  that  we  are  in  the  presence  of  a  personal- 
ity which  is  almost  oblivious  of  its  outward  sur- 
roundings, altogether  oblivious  of  itself.  There 
is  no  phrase  which  to  my  mind  would  describe 
him  so  well  as  *the  anonymous  man.'  It  is 
not  only  that  he  never  gives  his  name ;  he  never 
thinks  of  his  name.  In  all  that  he  does,  in  all 
that  he  meditates,  he  keeps  hid  from  himself. 
The  typical  attitude  in  which  he  is  painted  is 
that  of  a  man  lying  on  Christ's  bosom.  And 
it  truly  describes  him.  This  later  portrait  is 
that  of  one  who  rests  upon  the  bosom  of  human- 
ity. There  is  one  word  which  has  become  his 
keynote — brotherhood.     The   man   who   in   the 


48  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

former  painting  asked  a  private  seat  above 
the  reach  of  the  common  crowd  is  found  in  this 
later  dehneation  elbov^ing  his  way  into  the  heart 
of  that  crowd  and  seeking  to  bury  the  very 
memory  of  his  name  in  the  sense  of  a  Hfe  which 
made  him  one  with  the  multitude. 

These  are  the  two  portraits.  What  is  their 
relation  to  one  another.?  The  bystanders  who 
first  occupied  the  Gallery  were  convinced  that 
they  represented  one  and  the  same  man.  But 
the  modern  bystanders  have  been  divided  in  opin- 
ion. Some  have  held  by  the  original  spectators 
— recognising  that  there  may  be  two  sides  to  the 
same  character.  Others  have  been  unable  thus 
to  bridge  the  chasm.  They  have  felt  that  these 
two  portraits  are  separated  by  the  gulf  of  Dives, 
that  they  cannot  be  thought  of  as  two  sides  of 
a  life  or  two  phases  of  a  character,  that  they  be- 
long to  different  atmospheres — one  to  earth  and 
the  other  to  heaven — one  to  the  mist  over  the 
river,  and  the  other  to  the  mountain  peak  lit 
by  the  morning  sun. 

Now,  I  want  to  put  a  question.  In  point  of 
fact,  there  is  in  the  New  Testament  Gallery  an 


JOHN  THE  SELF-SURRENDERED       49 

instance  in  which  two  portraits  of  the  same  man 
are  even  more  pronouncedly  different  than  those 
attributed  to  the  Son  of  Zebedee.  I  allude  to 
the  picture  of  Saul  of  Tarsus  and  the  subse- 
quent picture  of  Paul  the  Apostle.  The  question 
I  put  is  this,  Why  does  no  one  say  that  these 
cannot  represent  the  same  man?  Of  course  the 
answer  will  be  immediate.  You  will  say,  This 
man,  Saul  of  Tarsus,  admittedly  turned  a  somer- 
sault ;  his  was  a  conversion,  a  transformation,  an 
emergence  from  darkness  into  light.  And  it  is 
quite  true  that  Saul  of  Tarsus  turned  a  somer- 
sault. It  is  quite  true  that,  as  he  says  himself, 
he  passed  through  a  change  equal  to  that  of  crea- 
tion in  its  emergence  from  chaos.  What  is  not 
true  is  the  notion  that  in  this  transformation  of 
Saul  there  is  anything  exceptional.  If  we  ex- 
clude John  the  Baptist,  who  was  in  the  deepest 
sense  a  forerunner,  I  do  not  know  a  man  of  the 
Gallery  who  had  not  as  much  need  of  transfor- 
mation as  Saul  of  Tarsus.  It  is  true  he  was  a 
persecutor;  but  negative  indifference  is  often 
a  bigger  gulf  than  positive  opposition.  What 
separated  the  Christian  and  the  Jew  was  not 


50  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

their  hostility;  it  was  their  ideas.  The  chasm 
between  them  was  as  great  ere  ever  one  oppos- 
ing voice  had  been  raised  on  either  side.  I 
must  repeat  what  I  have  already  said — the  New 
Gallery  is  not  a  painting  of  qualities  but  a  paint- 
ing of  transformations.  Each  is  a  different 
transformation ;  Paul  exhibits  one,  John  exhibits 
another.  If  we  allow  the  double,  nay,  the  con- 
tradictory delineation  for  Paul,  why  should  we 
not  make  the  same  allowance  for  John!  What 
we  see  in  his  case  is  what  we  see  in  the  case 
of  the  man  of  Tarsus  —  transformation.  It  is 
the  change  from  egotism  into  impersonality, 
from  consciousness  into  forgetfulness,  from 
self  into  self  -  surrender.  What  happened  to 
John  was  the  breaking  of  his  mirror  —  the 
smashing  into  fragments  of  that  glass  by  which 
he  had  shone  reflected  in  his  own  sight 
and  had  appeared  the  prime  actor  in  the  great 
drama. 

When  did  this  destruction  of  the  mirror  take 
place.-*  Why  should  we  speak  of  it  as  a  *  smash- 
ing' ?  Would  it  not  be  the  result  of  develop- 
ment.!*   Undoubtedly.     But  in  all  development 


JOHN  THE  SELF-SURRENDERED       51 

there  is  one  crucial  moment — 3.  moment  which 
marks  the  boundary-line.  The  building  up  of 
individual  life  is  a  development — a  progress 
from  stage  to  stage.  But  there  is  a  special  in- 
stant in  which  what  we  call  deadness  passes  into 
life.  It  matters  not  what  theory  of  life  you 
hold.  You  may  say,  if  you  like,  with  Herbert 
Spencer,  that  it  is  simply  the  adjustment  of 
the  organism  to  its  environment.  Very  well. 
But  there  is  a  moment,  a  crisis  moment,  in 
which  that  adjustment  is  complete,  and  in  that 
moment  we  pass  from  death  unto  life.  Death 
in  its  natural  course  is  also  a  development — a. 
gradual  process  of  exhaustion.  But  there  is 
a  point  in  which  the  process  becomes  an  act,  a 
moment  of  immediate  transformation  in  which 
there  is  no  longer  any  room  for  develop- 
ment, and  in  which  the  change  is  abrupt,  un- 
graduated,  instantaneous — we  say,  'The  man  is 
dead.' 

And  John  had  a  crisis  moment.  It  came,  I 
believe,  in  that  hour  when  his  egotism  seemed 
to  have  soared  into  its  climax — when,  swayed  by 
a  mother's  ambition,   he  asked  the  front  seat 


52  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

in  the  Kingdom. '  And  it  was  with  him  as  with 
Paul — the  hour  of  his  deepest  moral  need  was 
the  hour  of  his  revelation.  For  a  moment  the 
man  of  Galilee,  like  the  man  of  Tarsus,  saw 
heaven  open.  And  what  a  heaven  it  was!  It 
was  a  reversal  of  all  his  dreams.  In  answer  to 
his  ignorant  and  presumptuous  prayer  Christ 
simply  raised  the  curtain  and  let  the  man  see 
in.  The  sight  which  met  his  gaze  paralysed 
his  earthly  wings  for  evermore;  the  soaring 
ceased,  the  bird  fell.  For,  what  was  it  he  saw 
— what  was  it  we  all  saw  ?  It  was  a  new  ideal  of 
greatness.  It  was  not  only  John  the  fisherman 
who  was  transformed  by  that  hour.  We  were 
all  transformed — kings  and  senators,  empires 
and  civilisations.  The  world  never  got  back  to 
its  old  regime.  What  was  that  old  regime.?  It 
was  the  idea  that  the  greatest  man  is  he  who 
has  the  million  for  his  servants.  But  when 
Jesus  said  to  John,  'Whosoever  will  be  great 
among   you,   let   him    be    your   minister,'    He 

^  On  mature  reflection,  I  would  place  this  incident 
much  earlier  than  I  did  in  my  Studies  of  the  Portrait  of 
Christ. 


JOHN  THE  SELF-SURRENDERED       53 

founded  a  new  regime;  He  declared  that  the 
greatest  man  is  he  who  is  the  servant  of  the 
million.  That  the  Son  of  Man — the  ideal  of  all 
royalty,  the  synonym  for  all  heroism,  should  be 
linked  not  with  mastery  but  with  subordination, 
that  the  name  to  a  child  of  Israel  most  sugges- 
tive of  power  should  be  associated  with  subservi- 
ence to  classes  and  masses  alike,  that  the  life 
of  the  potentate  should  be  identified  in  its  deepest 
essence  with  a  voluntary  adoption  of  the  life  of 
the  slave — this  was  not  only  an  epoch-making 
thought  but  a  thought  which  has  re-moulded  all 
the  epochs.  We  need  not  wonder  that  it  re- 
moulded John. 

I  should  say,  then,  that  this  was  to  John  the 
smashing  of  the  mirror.  It  was  his  crisis  mo- 
ment. In  one  of  his  letters  which  has  always 
seemed  to  me  to  have  a  ring  of  autobiography  he 
speaks  of  having  'passed  from  death  unto  life.* 
Those  are  the  words  of  a  man  who  has  been 
conscious  of  a  crisis.  They  express  the  sense, 
not  of  a  process,  but  of  an  act.  Doubtless  there 
had  been  a  process  too — subtle,  hidden,  under- 
ground;   the  greater  part  of  our  preparation  for 


54  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

the  Kingdom  is  an  unconscious  preparation. 
But,  as  I  have  said,  to  John  as  to  every  devel- 
oping man  there  comes  a  boundary  moment,  a 
point  at  which  the  soul  must  pass  over.  We 
may  have  a  very  long  walk  to  the  river;  but, 
when  we  have  reached  the  river,  walking  is  at 
an  end — the  remainder  of  the  journey  is  to  be 
completed  by  a  plunge.  John  is  conscious  of 
a  plunge — of  having  'passed  over.'  He  is  con- 
scious of  having  been  on  two  banks  of  the  river 
— of  having  made  the  transition  from  the  bosom 
of  his  mother  Salome  to  the  bosom  of  the  Son  of 
Man.  He  has  exchanged  the  love  of  self  for 
the  love  of  humanity,  ambition  for  ardour,  ego- 
tism for  enthusiasm.  He  feels  that  the  former 
man  is  dead — that  death  itself  could  not  produce 
a  greater  change.  He  forgets  all  the  rest  of 
the  process  in  the  transition  of  a  single  moment ; 
and  no  moment  is  to  my  mind  so  likely  as  that 
in  which  on  the  plains  of  earth  the  Son  of  Man 
revealed  to  him  the  ideal  of  heavenly  greatness. 

But  there  is  one  point  on  which  I  think  many 
of  us  have  been  under  a  great  misapprehension. 
The  popular  notion  seems  to  be  that  John  made 


JOHN  THE  SELF-SURRENDERED       55 

a  transition  from  a  very  masculine  to  a  very  ei- 
feminate  nature.  I  believe  it  to  have  been  ex- 
actly the  reverse.  I  have  already  expressed  the 
opinion  that  the  influence  of  John's  mother  was 
in  the  first  instance  unfavourable  to  him.  He 
was  too  much  under  her  tuition  and  imbibed  too 
much  of  her  spirit.  It  was  a  great  mistake  to 
imagine  that  the  early  petulance  and  vehemence 
of  John  are  the  mark  of  a  nature  not  effeminate. 
They  come  direct  from  effeminacy.  If  the  origi- 
nal picture  is  less  gentle  than  the  later  picture,  it 
is  precisely  because  it  is  more  effeminate.  Those 
sudden  gusts  of  temper,  those  sweeping  breezes 
of  passion,  those  eruptions  of  the  lava  stream  that 
destroy  Samaria  and  wither  even  a  good  man 
if  he  refuse  to  join  the  Church — whence  come 
they.?  Just  from  that  which  is  the  root  of 
effeminacy — the  absence  of  self-restraint,  the 
inability  to  pause  and  deliberate,  the  inefficiency 
of  that  protective  wall  which  prevents  the  im- 
pulses of  the  heart  from  running  over. 

What  John  received  from  his  transformation 
was  a  virile  soul;  and  it  was  his  virile  soul  that 
made  his  gentleness.     I  have  said  that  his  out- 


56  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

burst  over  Samaria  came  from  the  unrestraint 
of  a  nature  too  soft  to  bind  its  wrath.  But  we 
shall  commit  a  great  error  if  we  imagine  that  the 
calmness  of  his  after-life  came  from  a  suppres- 
sion of  his  power  to  feel.  I  have  no  hesitation 
in  saying  that  there  is  more  evidence  of  intense 
and  burning  feeling  in  the  second  picture  than 
in  the  first.  You  look  at  a  windless,  waveless 
sea  whose  surface  is  unruffled  and  whose  bosom 
is  unclouded.  But  you  do  not  look  long  before 
you  find  that  the  stress  has  been  only  trans- 
ferred into  the  interior.  You  see  heavings  be- 
low; you  hear  repressed  mutterings  under- 
neath; you  detect  the  shadow  of  a  submarine 
hand  holding  back  the  depths  with  iron  grasp 
and  creating  the  surface  calm  by  the  very  force 
of  its  inward  struggle.  Listen  to  the  cry  that 
breaks  out  in  one  of  John's  letters! — 'If  a  man 
say,  I  love  God,  and  hateth  his  brother,  he  is  a 
liar.'  Is  that  the  language  of  a  weakling,  of 
a  man  emasculated,  enervated,  emptied  of  his 
spirit  of  fire!  Is  it  not  clear  that  it  is  the  fire 
which  is  trying  John's  work — subjecting  him  to 
the  crucial  test  of  whether  his  gentleness  has  yet 


JOHN  THE  SELF-SURRENDERED       57 

made  him  great,  whether  he  has  reached  that  gift 
which  was  absent  from  his  boyhood — the  power 
to  be  scorched  without  scorching,  to  be  smitten 
and  not  smite! 

Do  you  know  what  I  think  the  strongest  evi- 
dence of  that  self-restraint  which  became  the 
flower  of  the  Son  of  Zebedee?  It  lies,  I  be- 
lieve, in  something  not  on  the  surface,  something 
for  which  you  must  read  between  the  lines. 
There  are  many  moments  of  love  which  are  not 
self-restraint,  but,  in  the  most  sublime  sense, 
self-indulgence.  I  would  not  say,  for  example, 
that  the  lying  on  the  Master's  bosom  was  a  mark 
of  restraint;  I  can  imagine  no  greater  lux- 
ury. I  would  not  say  that  the  standing  at  the 
foot  of  the  cross  was  a  mark  of  restraint;  we 
wonder  that  the  others  could,  restrain  themselves 
from  being  there.  But  the  fact  which  I  think 
reveals  the  transformed  John  in  his  summer  bloom 
is  his  attitude  to  Judas  Iscariot.  In  nothing 
does  he  come  so  near  his  Lord.  I  believe  that 
the  only  two  of  the  primitive  band  who  detected 
Judas  before  the  time  were  John  and  his  Mas- 
ter;   upon  the  rest  the  betrayal  fell  like  a  clap 


S&  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

of  thunder.  John  and  his  Master  alone  saw 
the  blemish  in  the  bud.  We  know  that  the  Son 
of  Zebedee  shared  in  the  perception  which  had 
broken  upon  his  Master,  because  he  tells  us  so. 
Nobody  can  read  the  Fourth  Gospel  without 
being  impressed  with  the  bitter  and  implacable 
loathing  which  this  man  by  nature  entertained 
for  Judas — a  loathing  more  strong,  more  deep, 
and  more  outspoken  than  is  displayed  by  any 
of  his  comrades.  This  is  the  fact  as  it  appears 
on  the  face  of  the  narrative.  The  beloved  dis- 
ciple has  come  into  the  dark  secret  of  his  Mas- 
ter. He  has  detected  the  blackness  in  a  human 
soul.  How  does  he  act  in  these  circumstances } 
Does  he  repeat  the  vituperation  that  he  launched 
at  the  Samaritan  village  .!*  Does  he  call  upon 
the  fire  to  come  down  and  consume  the  mis- 
creant }  Does  he  denounce  this  man  as  he  de- 
nounced the  other  man  for  working  in  a  Name  he 
did  not  worship.?  No;  he  has  learned  self-re- 
straint now.  He  conceals  his  revelation.  He 
meets  Judas  as  he  meets  Peter.  He  meets  him 
at  the  council,  he  meets  him  at  the  feast,  he 
meets  him  in  that  solemn  hour  sacred  to  the 


JOHN  THE  SELF-SURRENDERED       59 

coming  bereavement — the  hour  of  all  others  when 
we  sigh  for  kindred  souls.  He  meets  him,  he 
greets  him,  as  a  brother ;  he  represses  the  pent- 
up  fury  of  his  heart. 

The  question  is,  Why.?  I  have  said  it  was 
self-restraint;  but  the  question  still  remains — 
Why.-*  There  is  no  such  thing  in  Christianity 
as  self-restraint  for  its  own  sake.  It  is  not  a 
Christian  virtue;  it  is  a  Stoic  virtue.  There 
are  hundreds  who  have  passed  through  the 
fiery  furnace  and  never  revealed  that  they  got 
any  hurt;  the  mind  can  be  taught  to  suppress 
its  cries.  But  Christian  self-restraint  is  not 
suppression;  it  is  surrender.  I  may  keep  back 
my  cry  from  pride,  or  I  may  keep  back  my  cry 
because  I  have  seen  a  possibility  of  succour. 
John's  attitude  to  Judas  is  the  latter  of  these. 
Why  does  he  treat  him  as  a  brother.?  Because 
in  the  companionship  of  the  Master  he  had 
awakened  to  the  sense  of  brotherhood.  As 
long  as  the  shell  had  not  burst,  John  and  his 
Master  had  a  ray  of  hope  for  Judas.  Did  you 
ever  ask  yourself  the  reason  of  Christ's  open 
proclamation    of    the   prophecy,    'One    of    you 


6o  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

shall  betray  me.'  *To  show  His  miraculous 
power, '  you  say.  What  I  regard  as  an  unhappy 
gloss  has  put  that  reason  into  Christ's  mouth; 
but  He  Himself  would  have  repudiated  it.  It 
required  no  miraculous  power  to  see  through  Ju- 
das, nor  was  there  any  miracle  in  the  vision.  I 
ask  again,  therefore,  Why  does  Christ  in  the 
presence  of  Judas  himself  keep  ringing  the 
changes  of  the  prophecy,  *One  of  you  shall  be- 
tray me'  }  And  I  answer,  *It  is  in  the  hope 
that  the  prophecy  will  not  come  true.'  He 
wants  the  man  to  take  fright  at  the  mirror  of 
himself — as  David  did  when  he  was  painted  by 
Nathan,  as  Nineveh  did  when  it  was  pictured  by 
Jonah.  If  by  any  chance  he  could  see  him- 
self— if  for  him,  bad  as  he  was,  lurid  as  he  was, 
repulsive  as  he  was,  there  could  lurk  in  some  cor- 
ner, however  small,  the  tiniest  patch  of  green — 
if  any  stray  word  could  waken  him,  any  chance 
light  scorch  him,  any  sudden  snapshot  reveal 
him  to  himself — the  Master  would  be  proud 
that  His  prophecy  should  fail. 

Now,    I   believe   Christ's   first  work  for  the 
transformed  John  was  the  bearing  with  Judas. 


JOHN  THE  SELF-SURRENDERED       6i 

When  he  had  reached  the  spiritual  shore — that 
state  which,  though  on  earth,  he  called  the 
world  beyond  death — the  first  work  that  awaited 
him  was  a  reversal  of  his  past.  As  an  arrogant 
youth,  he  had  called  upon  the  flames  to  wrap 
round  and  round  the  walls  of  a  Samaritan  village 
that  had  closed  its  gates  on  Jesus.  But  here 
was  a  spectacle  compared  to  which  the  guilt  of 
Samaria's  village  grew  pale!  Here  was  a  life 
closing  its  gates — body  and  soul,  nerve  and 
sinew,  heart  and  brain;  here  was  a  mind  so 
dark,  so  irresponsive,  so  unsympathetic  that 
John  himself  in  a  moment  of  self-communion 
calls  him  the  *  son  of  perdition ' !  ^  But  a  voice 
says:  *Do  not  accelerate  the  perdition;  do 
not  anticipate  the  perdition;  give  the  man  a 
chance — a  chance  in  your  own  heart!  Do  not 
let  the  fire  come  down  upon  Samaria  even  in 
imagination!  Keep  it  away  from  your  fancy; 
hope  against  it ;  pray  against  it ;  love  against  it  I 

'  I  believe  the  words,  'None  of  them  is  lost,  but  the 
son  of  perdition '  to  be  John's  passing  comment  on  the 
statement  of  Christ's  prayer,  '  Those  that  Thou  gavest 
me  I  have  kept '  (John  xvii.  12). 


62  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

I  do  not  say,  'Restrain  yourself,  curb  yourself, 
control  yourself ! ' — I  would  rather  prescribe  the 
wing  than  the  chain.  Bathe  yourself  in  broth- 
erhood, lave  yourself  in  love,  hide  yourself  in 
humanity,  sun  yourself  in  the  service  of  man; 
and  you  will  no  more  need  to  pray,  "  Keep  back 
my  angry  soul ! "  ' 

Here  is  a  fitting  place  to  bid  John  farewell — 
in  that  haven  of  love  which  was  to  him  the 
other  side  of  death.  Three  times,  in  the  testi- 
mony of  after-days,  the  curtain  rises  on  the  man. 
Very  surprising  to  me  are  these  successive 
risings.  Viewed  as  historical  or  viewed  as  tra- 
ditional, they  mark  the  true  sequence  of  the 
spiritual  life.  Life  has  ever  three  typical  peri-J^ 
ods;  I  would  call  them  the  age  of  imagination,  ; 
the  age  of  reason,  and  the  age  of  simplicity. 
We  all  begin  with  our  Apocalypse — our  sight 
of  a  city  of  gold  with  pearly  gates  and  crystal 
fountains  and  nightless  skies.  We  do  not 
moYQ  forward  through,  liie;  we  move  backward. 
The  first  thing  we  see  is  the  drama  completed. 
The  dawn  that  greets  the  eye  of  youth  is  not  the 
dawn  of  its  own  morning  but  the  dawn  of  fu- 


JOHN  THE  SELF-SURRENDERED       63 

turity.  Yesterday  has  no  power,  to-day  has 
no  power ;  we  light  our  torch  at  the  sun  of  to- 
morrow. Then  comes  the  second  step,  and  it 
is  a  step  backward.  We  fall  into  the  present 
world.  Reason  takes  the  place  of  imagination. 
To-morrow  fades  in  to-day.  Instead  of  looking 
forward  we  look  round.  We  begin  to  ask.  Who 
are  wei* — Where  are  wei* — What  is  the  cause 
of  our  being  .^ — Why  are  there  so  many  streets 
that  are  not  golden,  so  many  gates  that  are  not 
of  pearl,  so  many  skies  that  are  all  night }  By 
and  by  there  comes  a  third  and  final  stage.  It 
is  what  we  should  have  expected  to  come  first — 
the  past  of  the  man.  He  ends  where  we  should 
have  looked  for  him  to  begin — in  the  simplic- 
ity of  a  child.  Arguments  lose  their  interest; 
theories  cease  to  trouble;  questionings  are  not 
long  harboured  in  the  mind — after  the  days  of 
tracing  come  the  days  of  trusting.  ^ 

And  these  are  the  curtains  that  rise  over  the 
subsequent  life  of  John.  We  see  the  heart  of 
youth  swelling  with  the  anticipation  of  future 
glories — the  man  of  the  Apocalypse,  the  man  of 
Patmos.     Then  we  see  the  heart  of  maturity — 


64  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

the  sober,  grave,  and  reverent  senior,  living  en- 
tirely in  the  problems  of  his  age,  and  striving 
to  mould  philosophy  into  the  image  of  his 
Christ ;  it  is  the  man  of  research,  the  man  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel.  At  last  there  comes  the  final 
raising  of  the  curtain;  and  we  see  a  little  child. 
He  has  gone  back  to  the  past.  We  have  a  series 
of  charmingly  simple  letters  which  make  the 
close  of  his  life  a  tribute  to  the  instincts  of 
childhood.  The  harp  of  youth  may  have  lost 
most  of  its  strings,  the  accents  of  philosophy 
may  have  ceased  to  charm;  but  there  is  one 
primitive  word  that  dominates,  rules,  over-rules 
—  it  is  Move.'  That  word  —  the  child's  first 
medium  of  revelation — becomes  to  this  old  man 
the  one  test  of  all  spiritual  beauty,  the  one  proof 
that  God  is  true,  the  one  unassailable  evidence 
of  the  destiny  and  the  mission  of  man. 

MY  Father,  when  I  look  at  Thy  Great  Gal- 
lery of  Christian  souls,  it  brings  a  deep 
comfort  to  my  heart  to  know  that  they  were  not 
always  beautiful.  If  theirs  had  been  a  native 
splendour,  I  should  have  sunk  beneath  the  glow. 


JOHN  THE  SELF-SURRENDERED       65 

But  I  bless  Thee  that  these  beautiful  faces  have 
been  gifts  from  Thee.  I  bless  Thee  that  in  the 
opening  of  their  lives  they  were  so  very  plain. 
It  is  not  a  prodigy  that  gives  me  hope ;  it  is  a  dull 
boy  rising  to  distinction.  Even  so,  my  hope 
of  loveliness  is  when  I  see  beauty  come  from 
unpromising  soil.  I  thank  Thee  that  Thou  hast 
let  me  see  the  dust  of  the  earth  out  of  which 
came  the  beloved  disciple — the  egotism,  the  van- 
ity, the  worldly  ambition,  the  forgetfulness  of 
others,  the  unrestrained  passion,  the  dictatorial 
pride,  the  mirror  of  self -consciousness  filling  all 
the  heart.  It  is  an  unholy  picture;  but  it 
makes  me  throb  with  the  promise  and  potency 
of  holiness.  For,  this  is  the  man  who  summers 
in  the  bowers  of  eternal  beauty — in  the  haven 
of  cloudless  love !  This  is  the  man  that  rests  on 
the  bosom  of  Thy  fair  Christ !  He  has  climbed 
from  rags  into  radiance.  He  has  soared  from 
dust  into  divinity.  He  has  mounted  from 
the  shadow  into  the  sunshine.  Therefore,  my 
Father,  there  is  hope  for  me — not  of  bare  salva- 
tion, but  of  the  glory  of  an  archangel.  I  too 
may  bask  in  Thy  heights;    I  too  may  dwell  in 


66  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

Thy  nightless  skies.  Only  let  Thy  Christ  stand 
over  my  dust,  and  it  will  bloom.  One  sight  of 
Him  will  break  the  mirror  of  my  vanity.  One 
touch  of  Him  will  still  the  beatings  of  my  ambi- 
tion. One  tone  of  Him  will  give  my  passions 
calm.  One  sigh  of  Him  will  shatter  all  my 
pride.  One  memory  of  Him  will  make  me  re- 
member myself  no  more.  Transform  me  by 
Thy  Christ,  O  my  God ! 


CHAPTER  IV 

NATHANAEL   THE   INVIGORATED 

As  we  advance  through  the  Great  Gallery  we 
are  confronted  by  a  face  which  has  left  its 
impress  on  the  canvas  of  all  time;  it  is  that  of 
Nathanael.  There  are  three  voices  in  the  verb 
*to  live' — being,  doing,  suffering.  There  are 
some  who  come  into  this  world  to  '  do ' ;  they 
are  sent  to  work  out  a  mission.  There  are  some 
who  come  into  this  world  to  'bear';  their 
special  gift  from  God  has  been  a  thorn.  But 
there  are  a  few  who  are  sent  neither  to  do  nor 
to  bear,  but  simply  to  'be.'  Nathanael  belongs 
to  the  last  class.  If  you  ask  what  he  did,  I  can- 
not tell.  I  can  tell  what  Peter  did,  what  John 
did,  what  Paul  did — but  not  what  Nathanael  did. 
His  mission  was  his  being,  and  his  being  was 
his  beauty.     We  feel  as  if  we  were  watching  a 

child  whose  years  are  to  be  few,  and  for  whom 
67 


68  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

there  is  no  active  work  designed,  yet  whose 
petals  we  see  unfolding  and  whose  buds  we  be- 
hold expanding.  The  picture  of  Nathanael  is 
strictly  the  unfolding  of  a  flower.  We  are  ac- 
customed to  say  that  we  are  told  nothing  about 
him.  Nothing  of  what  he  did,  nothing  of  what 
he  bore — but  of  what  he  was,  a  whole  biography ! 
Come  and  unfold  the  flower  with  me  as  it 
grows  under  the  fig-tree !  It  is  the  only  life  in 
the  New  Testament  Gallery  which  is  revealed 
emerging  from  rustic  scenes.  Peter,  Andrew, 
James,  the  apostle  John,  probably  Philip,  rise 
from  the  sea.  Matthew  issues  from  the  ex- 
change. Mark  comes  from  a  secretary's  room. 
Nicodemus  seems  to  have  come  out  of  a  library. 
But  Nathanael  emerges  from  under  a  fig-tree.' 
He  is  the  rustic  of  the  primitive  band.  Rustic- 
ity is  the  first  stage  of  his  life-flower.  A  native 
of  Cana  in  Galilee,  he  has  never  left  that  village 
for  any  contact  with  a  busy  town.  He  has  not 
rubbed  with  the  world,  and  he  remains  still  an 
artless  child — free  from  scheming,  free  from  am- 

*  It  is  possible,  in  the  light  of  John  xxi.  2  and  3,  that 
at  an  after-date  he  joined  the  fisherman's  craft. 


NATHANAEL  THE  INVIGORATED       69 

bition,  free  from  jealousy,  free  from  the  conscious- 
ness of  self.  He  is  without  vices;  but  as  yet 
it  is  only  the  faultlessness  of  rustic  simplicity. 

I  think  we  are  in  a  great  mistake  about  the 
meaning  of  these  words  which  Jesus  spoke  of 
Nathanael,  *  Behold  an  Israelite  indeed,  in 
whom  is  no  guile.'  As  popularly  understood, 
they  would  be  a  eulogium  fit  to  emblazon  on  the 
wings  of  angel  or  archangel,  cherub  or  seraph. 
If  Nathanael  has  reached  this  altitude,  why  call 
him  to  Jesus  at  all!  Could  Christ  do  more  for 
any  man  than  make  him  free  from  guile!  If 
this  man  has  reached  the  climax,  he  has  no  need 
of  the  climbing ;  the  ladder  from  earth  to  heaven 
is  in  his  case  quite  superfluous !  Let  him  remain 
under  the  fig-tree  and  meditate  on  his  own  skies ; 
he  can  see  no  greater  things  than  these ! 

But  my  reading  of  this  passage  is  very  differ- 
ent. I  would  paraphrase  it  thus:  *It  is  not 
opposition  I  am  afraid  of ;  it  is  dishonest  opposi- 
tion. I  see  a  man  resting  under  a  tree.  He  is 
a  thorough  Israelite — earnestly  devoted  to  the 
Rabbinical  traditions  of  his  country,  and  therefore 
naturally  not  in  sympathy  with  me.     Yet  in  his 


70  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

opposition  there  is  no  guile.  There  is  nothing 
mean  about  it,  nothing  personal,  nothing  paltry. 
He  is  genuinely  afraid  of  the  new  movement — 
afraid  from  the  highest,  purest  motives.  There 
will  be  an  opposition  which  will  come  from 
guile.  Men  will  refuse  to  come  to  me  through 
fear  of  the  cross,  through  dread  of  the  sacrifice 
which  my  religion  involves.  But  here  is  a  man 
who  is  afraid  he  will  lose  the  cross,  afraid  he 
will  be  deprived  of  the  chance  of  sacrifice.  He 
says,  "  Can  any  good  thing  come  out  of  Naza- 
reth ! "  He  thinks  my  religion  will  be  too  gay 
a  thing,  too  sportive,  too  joyous.  He  distrusts 
Nazareth,  he  distrusts  any  part  of  Galilee.  Gal- 
ilee is  too  near  the  Gentiles  for  him — too  near 
the  confluence  of  the  sinful  nations  who  spend 
their  life  in  eating  and  drinking,  marrying  and 
giving  in  marriage.  He  fears  it  will  be  a  world- 
ly religion,  withdrawing  the  mind  from  what  is 
serious  and  making  the  faith  of  Israel  an  imita- 
tion of  the  games  of  Greece.' 

Consider,  for  a  rustic  like  Nathanael  and  one 
with  the  weakness  of  a  rustic,  there  was  nothing 
strange  in  his  entertaining  such  a  presentiment. 


NATHANAEL  THE  INVIGORATED       71 

For  let  us  remember  that  Christianity  is  the  only 
religious  revival  in  the  world  which  has  come  in 
gay  attire.  Everywhere  else  the  revival  of  re- 
ligion has  appeared  in  dust  and  ashes ;  men  have 
beat  upon  their  breasts  and  cried,  'Unclean!' 
Christ  Himself  was  at  first  disposed  to  fast ;  but 
He  had  changed  His  thought — changed  it  for 
the  ringing  of  bells  and  the  playing  of  dance- 
music.  And  the  sequel  was  to  emphasise  the 
change.  Any  man  of  the  Baptist's  school  would 
be  startled  out  of  his  senses  by  what  he  was  to 
see.  He  would  see  Jesus  Himself  immediately 
after  His  opening  ministry '  providing  for  the 
supply  of  wine  at  a  marriage  feast!  He  would 
see  this  same  Jesus  turning  a  religious  meeting 
into  a  social  picnic  because  He  saw  that  the 
people  were  faint  and  weary!  He  would  see 
Matthew  signalising  his  conversion  by  a  sumptu- 
ous dinner  to  his  friends !  He  would  see  young 
ministers  after  the  Sunday-morning  service 
walking  in  the  fields  and  plucking  the  cars  of 
corn!     He  would  see  Martha — not  in  spite  of, 

*  John's  first  chapters  presuppose  that  Christ  was  in 
the  air  previous  to  the  feast  of  Cana. 


72  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

but  by  reason  of,  Christ's  presence — spreading 
the  richest  repast  that  ever  graced  a  table  in 
Bethany!  All  this  he  would  be  compelled  to 
view. 

And  what  would  he  feel?  Very  much,  I 
think,  what  a  former  generation  of  simple  coun- 
try-people felt  when  the  innovations  of  modern 
science  first  broke  upon  the  scene.  When  the 
white  sail  was  supplanted  by  the  black  wreaths 
of  the  steamer;  when  the  shrill  railway -whistle 
woke  the  silent  air;  when  a  message  was  sent 
to  India  and  an  answer  came  back  within  an  hour ; 
when  a  man  was  told  that  he  could  speak  to  his 
brother  through  a  distance  of  sixteen  hundred 
miles;  when,  later  still,  the  voices  of  men  were 
bottled  up  in  jars,  carried  across  the  Atlantic, 
and  made  to  deliver  speeches  or  sing  songs  after 
perhaps  their  original  owners  had  passed  away 
from  earth  —  I  say,  such  revelations  as  these 
must  have  shaken  all  the  lives  reposing  under 
the  fig-tree.  They  must  have  felt  as  if  private 
communion  were  abolished,  as  if  the  life  of 
pubUc  day  had  extinguished  for  ever  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  quiet  hour,  as  if  there  were  no 


NATHANAEL  THE  INVIGORATED       73 

longer  a  meeting-place  between  the  soul  and 
God. 

I  have  attributed  to  Nathanael  the  weakness 
of  the  rustic.  Some  may  be  shocked  by  the 
ascription.  But  to  me  it  is  an  impossible  sup- 
position that  Jesus  had  any  need  to  convert  a 
man  who  was  already  in  the  literal  sense  holy, 
harmless,  undefiled.  Christ  came  to  transform ; 
if  Nathanael  was  perfect,  there  was  nothing  to 
change  in  him.  I  think  there  was  something 
to  change.  I  believe  that  originally  his  under- 
standing was  narrow ;  he  wanted  mental  vigour, 
and  Christ  called  him  to  give  him  that  vigour. 
To  me  the  want  of  mental  vigour  appears  more 
in  the  second  stage  of  the  flower  than  in  the  first. 
It  is  not  so  much  in  his  opposition  to  Christ  as 
in  his  acceptance  of  Christ  that  the  weakness  is 
seen.  If  he  was  opposed  to  Christ  on  inadequate 
evidence,  he  accepted  Him  on  evidence  more 
inadequate  still.  The  narrative  is  given  in  very 
direct  and  simple  terms,  and  may  be  briefly  re- 
capitulated. 

Philip  runs  into  Nathanael' s  retreat  and  ac- 
costs him  with  the  virtual  announcement,  *The 


74  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

Messiah  is  come — the  long-expected,  the  long- 
desired;  He  is  come  in  the  person  of  a  toiling 
man,  a  man  of  Nazareth !  *  '  That  cannot  be, ' 
cries  Nathanael;  'we  who  are  of  Galilee  know 
too  much  about  its  sinfulness  to  recognise  a 
Christ  from  Nazareth ! '  '  Instead  of  arguing 
about  the  matter, '  exclaims  Philip,  'come  and  see 
for  yourself ;  look  at  the  man  with  your  own  eyes, 
and  judge  him ! '  Nathanael  agrees  to  the 
test.  He  is  brought  right  into  the  presence  of 
Jesus.  Jesus  greets  him  as  one  with  whom 
He  had  long  been  familiar.  'How  do  you 
know  me  ? '  says  Nathanael.  Jesus  answers,  '  I 
saw  you  sitting  under  the  fig-tree  before  any 
man's  attention  was  directed  to  you.'  Then, 
with  a  great  rush  of  enthusiasm,  with  a  gust  of 
conviction  that  swept  all  before  it,  Nathanael 
breaks  forth  into  the  vehement  exclamation, 
*  Rabbi,  Thou  art  the  Son  of  God,  Thou  art  the 
King  of  Israel!* 

Now,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  the 
rustic  was  prominent  here.  Nathanael  had  en- 
tered upon  a  great  sea  in  a  boat  that  was  not  fit  to 
bear  a  single  gale.     The  conclusion  was  far  too 


NATHANAEL  THE  INVIGORATED       75 

big  for  the  premises.  He  had  rested  the  Mes- 
siahship  of  Jesus  on  what  would  now  be  called 
an  act  of  clairvoyance — a  power  to  see  things  at 
a  distance.  That  was  no  mark  of  Messiahship ; 
I  doubt  if  it  was  even  a  necessary  mark  of  good- 
ness. It  was  a  possession  of  the  prophets 
— and  there  were  bad  men  with  the  prophetic 
faculty.  So  far  as  I  see,  all  the  wicked  peo- 
ple in  Nazareth  might  have  had  this  power 
without  in  the  slightest  degree  diminishing 
their  wickedness.  Nathanael  was  here  untrue 
to  that  fine  moral  bias  which  had  prompted  his 
original  prejudice.  The  moral  bias  was  the  one 
good  thing  about  the  prejudice.  He  was  then 
in  search  of  goodness  from  his  Christ;  it  was 
a  terrible  fall  to  come  down  to  clairvoyance. 
Jesus  Himself  was  surprised  at  the  crude  convic- 
tion. '  Because  I  said  I  saw  thee  under  the  fig- 
tree,  believest  thou ! '  It  is  not  the  glad  surprise 
He  expressed  later  at  the  faith  of  the  Phoenician 
woman.  He  recognises,  no  doubt,  that  Nathan- 
ael has  made  an  advance — that  the  flower  has 
actually  found  its  way  into  the  light;  but  He 
feels  that  it  has  dropped  something  in  the  proc- 


76  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

ess.  Nathanael  has  lowered  his  demand.  He 
has  abated  his  claim.  He  has  consented  to  take 
less  from  his  Christ  than  he  asked  under  the 
fig-tree.  There,  he  had  demanded  a  Christ  who 
should  come  from  a  holy  soil,  whose  environ- 
ment should  be  solemn,  whose  tread  should  be 
serious.  Now,  he  has  for  the  time  forgotten 
these  impressions,  and  is  willing  to  reverence  a 
King  who  has  the  attribute  of  second  sight ! 

Let  us  understand  this  matter.  The  Christ 
of  the  Gospels  desires  beyond  all  things  to  se- 
cure proximity  to  Himself.  He  will  accept  that 
on  any  terms — even  should  the  coming  be  for 
the  sake  of  the  loaves;  He  knows  that  mere 
proximity  will  eventually  kindle  fire.  But  in 
the  case  of  such  inadequate  motives  there  is  ab- 
sent an  element  of  joy.  It  is  not  that  there  is 
little  faith.  I  believe  Nathanael  had  enormous 
faith.  I  believe  he  would  have  gone  to  the  stake 
for  his  faith.  I  think  his  conviction  at  that  mo- 
ment was  deeper  than  that  of  any  of  the  previ- 
ous converts — deeper  than  Peter's  or  John's  or 
Philip's  or  Andrew's.  But  the  conviction  itself 
was  based  on  something  which  Christ  did  not 


NATHANAEL  THE  INVIGORATED       77 

hold  to  be  an  essential  part  of  His  system.  Let 
me  try  to  illustrate  the  difference  between  the 
'little  faith'  and  the  'inadequate  faith.* 

Imagine  that  a  popular  plebiscite  were  taken 
with  the  view  of  ascertaining  the  public's  esti- 
mate of  some  great  poet — let  us  say,  Robert 
Browning.  Let  us  suppose  that  hundreds  of 
sheets  were  crowded  with  panegyrics  and  a  few 
tens  with  adverse  criticisms.  But  let  us  con- 
ceive the  idea  that  the  list  was  closed  by  two 
very  unique  statements  of  opinion,  neither  of 
which  could  be  described  as  either  eulogy  or 
blame,  and  which  by  their  very  eccentricity 
excited  much  attention.  Let  us  imagine  the 
contents  of  these  two  paragraphs.  We  begin 
with  the  last  but  one. 

It  says :  *  I  believe  that  Browning  has  a  power 
which  I  have  not  perceived.  His  great  poems 
are  quite  obscure  to  me.  I  cannot  understand 
Sordello ;  I  cannot  fathom  Paracelsus ;  I  can- 
not unravel  The  Ring  and  the  Book.  I  must 
say,  with  the  Psalmist,  "Such  knowledge  is 
too  great  for  me;  it  is  high;  I  cannot  attain 
unto  it."    Yet  I  am  willing  to  believe  that  the 


78  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

error  is  in  me.  The  reason  is  that  when  I 
read  some  of  his  small  pieces,  such  as  Evelyn 
Hope  and  Easter  Day,  I  feel  charmed  both  with 
thought  and  style.  These  fragments  enliven 
me,  refresh  me,  quicken  me.  I  would  come  to 
Browning  for  these  tiny  sparks  from  the  anvil. 
The  great  work  of  his  forge  is  meaningless  to 
me;  but  the  sparks  have  light  and  warmth,  and 
they  seem  to  beckon  me  on  to  the  hope  of 
higher  vision.  * 

Now,  I  should  say  that  this  man  had  *a  little 
faith'  in  Browning.  He  believes  in  him  to  the 
extent  of  Evelyn  Hope  and  Easter  Day ;  and  on 
account  of  that  belief  he  distrusts  his  adverse 
judgment  of  the  rest.  These  are  elements  of 
faith — very  few,  very  fragmentary,  very  simple, 
but  pointing  in  the  right  direction.  Let  us 
look  now  at  the  other  and  latest  paragraph; 
it  breathes  a  sentiment  wholly  different,  and 
must  be  measured  by  a  standard  of  its  own. 

It  says :  *  I  am  sure  that  Browning  is  a  born 
poet.  I  have  never  read  him,  but  I  have  done 
better  —  I  have  come  into  contact  with  his 
soul.     I  was  privileged  once  to  meet  him,   to 


NATHANAEL  THE  INVIGORATED       79 

be  introduced  to  him.  It  was  under  a  tree.  I 
had  run  beneath  its  branches  for  shelter  from  a 
passing  shower,  and  there  I  found  a  group  al- 
ready gathered,  of  whom  Browning  was  one. 
He  was  made  known  to  me ;  and  it  seemed  as  if 
he  had  known  me  all  along.  His  manner  was 
that  of  a  familiar  friend.  Nothing  could  exceed 
his  courtesy,  his  urbanity,  his  freedom  from 
self-consciousness,  his  personal  interest  in  the 
things  of  which  I  spoke.  I  felt  then  and  I  feel 
now  that  only  the  soul  of  a  poet  could  have 
enabled  any  man  to  throw  himself  thus  into  the 
life  of  another. ' 

I  ask,  What  is  the  position  of  this  man?  Is 
he  in  want  of  faith.?  No;  he  has  boundless 
faith ;  he  has  crowned  his  ideal  with  full  laurels. 
But  then,  it  is  Nathanael's  crown — a.  crown 
given  for  inadequate  causes.  He  has  accepted 
Browning  as  his  laureate,  not  on  account  of  his 
poetry,  but  on  account  of  an  interview  under  a 
tree.  He  has  reached  a  royal  conclusion  by 
faulty  premises.  No  doubt  it  is  good  that  in 
any  capacity  he  should  stand  near  Browning. 
We  will  not  rob  him  of  his  place;   hereafter  he 


8o  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

may  bloom  by  reason  of  the  contact.  We  only 
claim  the  right  to  say  that  he  has  reached  this 
place  by  a  short  and  easy  method,  and  that  he 
will  some  day  have  to  fall  back  to  conquer  the 
unappropriated  ground. 

And  now  I  come  to  the  third  and  final  step 
in  the  spiritual  history  of  Nathanael.  It  is 
announced  by  Jesus  as  something  still  in  the 
future  which  is  awaiting  him  and  all  of  them; 
but  it  is  announced  as  a  positive  certainty — 
with  the  formula,  'Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto 
you.'  Jesus  predicts  Nathanael' s  mental  in- 
vigoration.  He  predicts  the  time  when  he  will 
base  His  claims  on  something  higher  than  a 
case  of  physical  clairvoyance — 'You  shall  see 
heaven  open,  and  the  angels  of  God  ascend- 
ing and  descending  upon  the  Son  of  Man. ' 

What  does  this  mean?  Literally  it  says, 
*You  Nathanael,  and  the  rest  of  you,  will  yet 
see  the  fulfilment  of  Jacob's  vision.'  But  what 
was  Jacob's  vision?  It  was  the  vision  of  God's 
charity  to  man.  The  angels  are  ascending  and 
descending  for  purposes  of  ministration;  they 
are  the  ministrant  spirits  of  the  old  dispensa- 


NATHANAEL  THE  INVIGORATED       8i 

tion.  But  there  is  one  statement  of  Christ  which 
is  an  addition  to  the  picture,  and  which  is  to 
my  mind  strikingly  original.  It  is  the  words, 
*upon  the  Son  of  Man.'  I  do  not  think  we  have 
grasped  the  significance  of  these  words.  Jesus 
claims  charity  as  the  special  evidence  of  His 
religion.  He  says  that  He  is  the  basis  of  all 
philanthropy,  of  all  benevolence,  of  all  humani- 
tarian effort.  He  refuses  the  name  of  charity 
to  anything  which  does  not  move  'on  the  steps 
of  the  Son  of  Man.'  He  tells  Nathanael  that 
this,  and  not  clairvoyance,  is  to  be  the  sign  of 
His  Messiahship.  He  claims  to  be  the  founder 
of  active  sympathy;  on  His  steps  alone  could 
it  descend  from  heaven;  other  foundation  could 
no  man  lay. 

Consider.  In  the  world  before  Christ,  in  the 
world  into  which  Christ  was  born,  charity  had 
sought  to  descend  by  the  steps  of  other  lad- 
ders. The  Stoic  had  preached  forgiveness  of 
injury;  but  the  ladder  on  which  he  descended 
was  the  sense  of  contempt  for  man.  Nobody 
was  worth  being  angry  at,  nobody  was  worth 
quarrelling    with.     The    mass   of    the    human 


82  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

race  were  poor  creatures,  too  insignificant  to 
stir  dissension  in  the  breast  of  a  philosopher  or 
wake  revenge  in  the  soul  of  a  thinker.  Again. 
The  Roman  supported  institutions  for  the  heal- 
ing of  wounded  soldiers  and  the  cure  of  sick 
slaves;  but  the  ladder  on  which  he  descended 
was  the  spirit  of  self-interest.  He  wanted  to 
preserve  his  property.  If  the  soldier  had  the 
prospect  of  life  in  him,  he  might  again  serve 
his  country ;  if  the  slave  gave  hope  of  recovery, 
he  might  again  serve  his  master.  The  hospitals 
of  that  old  world  were  not  homes  for  the  good 
of  the  sufferer;  they  were  homes  for  the  good 
of  the  healthy.  They  were  intended  to  recruit 
the  sinews  of  war  for  the  leaders  of  armies; 
they  were  designed  to  recoup  the  resources  of 
wealth  for  the  masters  of  households.  Do  I 
speak  this  to  their  blame.-*  Assuredly  not.  It 
was  an  aim  legitimate  and  right.  But  it  was  not 
the  vision  which  Nathanael  was  to  see.  It 
was  not  a  descent  on  the  steps  of  the  Son  of 
Man.  In  fact,  man  had  nothing  to  do  with  it; 
he  was  the  one  factor  absent  from  human  calcu- 
lation.    Nobody  took  into  account  that  he  was 


NATHANAEL  THE  INVIGORATED      83 

lying  on  a  bed  of  pain;  nobody  asked  whether 
his  suffering  could  be  mitigated.  The  one  ques- 
tion was,  Could  it  be  cured? — could  he  be  made 
available  for  the  economy  of  the  state  or  the  econ- 
omy of  the  domestic  hearth?  If  he  could,  the 
gates  of  the  infirmary  were  thrown  open  to  him ; 
if  he  could  not,  he  had  the  fate  of  the  man  at 
the  Pool  of  Bethesda — he  could  not  get  in. 

Now,  Nathanael's  vision  was  to  be  very  dif- 
ferent from  this.  The  difference  lay  in  the  me- 
dium of  descent.  Rome  stooped  from  her 
proud  altitude  to  bind  the  wounds  of  the  sufferer ; 
but  the  ladder  on  which  she  came  was  not  the 
ladder  of  Jacob — she  descended  on  the  steps  of 
self-interest.  But  the  steps  of  the  Son  of  Man 
led  in  the  opposite  way.  There  was  no  thought 
of  self,  no  thought  of  personal  damage,  no  thought 
of  lost  service.  There  was  only  one  thought 
— that  a  human  form  was  being  mutilated,  that 
a  human  heart  was  feeling  sad.  Even  the  possi- 
bility of  recovery  was  not  the  boundary-line  of 
sympathy.  Man' s  physical  care  was  to  go  beyond 
his  physical  hope.  It  was  to  take  up  the  incur- 
ables.    It  was  to  provide  a  home  for  those  who 


84  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

would  serve  no  more,  would  fight  no  more, 
would  be  citizens  of  their  country  no  more. 
It  was  to  prepare  for  them  a  new  citizenship — 
a  place  where  they  could  abide  under  the  shad- 
ow of  the  Almighty  and  render  obedience,  not 
in  serving,  but  in  waiting.  This  was  the  spec- 
tacle which  in  the  days  to  come  was  to  greet 
the  eyes  of  Nathanael.  And  the  strange  thing 
is  that  the  ground  of  this  compassion  for  human 
suffering  was  not  the  insignificance  but  the  great- 
ness of  man.  Not  because  he  was  a  poor,  help- 
less creature  shaken  by  every  wind  and  at  the 
mercy  of  every  circumstance  was  man's  benevo- 
lence to  be  evoked  for  man.  Rather  was  charity 
to  be  elicited  by  the  fact  that  above  the  manger 
there  was  a  star,  that  in  company  with  the  weary 
night-vigils  there  were  choirs  of  celestial  song, 
that,  lying  beside  the  impotence  of  the  babe, 
there  were  gold  and  frankincense  and  myrrh 
that  told  of  a  coming  glory. 

Before  taking  leave  of  Nathanael  there  is  one 
thing  I  should  like  to  say.  Christian  writers, 
as  a  rule,  have  been  eager  to  include  his  name 
in  the  list  of  the  twelve  apostles — they  have 


NATHANAEL  THE  INVIGORATED       85 

tried  to  identify  him  with  Bartholomew.  It  has 
seemed  to  them  that  one  so  early  called  must 
have  been  an  apostle.  In  that  view  I  cannot  con- 
cur. I  do  not  think  Nathanael  was  an  apostle. 
I  believe  the  Fourth  Gospel  had  for  one  of  its 
designs  just  to  show  that  men  could  get  close  to 
Jesus  without  any  official  position.  Look  at  its 
very  keynote! — *As  many  as  received  Him,  to 
them  gave  He  power  to  become  the  sons  of  God, 
even  to  them  that  believe  on  His  name. '  That 
keynote  seeks  to  show  that  on  the  wings  of  in- 
ward faith,  whose  beating  is  inaudible  even  to 
the  bystander,  the  humblest  soul  may  soar  direct 
into  the  heart  of  the  Master.  Accordingly,  this 
Gospel  has  a  record  regarding  Christians  else- 
where unnamed  or  undwelt  on — Nathanael,  Nico- 
demus,  Martha,  Mary,  Lazarus.  Every  one  of 
them  was  brought  as  near  to  Jesus  as  any  apostle 
of  the  band.  Nathanael  saw  His  glory ;  Nico- 
demus  buried  Him ;  Mary  anointed  Him ;  Martha 
reasoned  with  Him;  Lazarus  rose  with  Him 
in  resurrection  life.  To  be  in  such  a  company 
was  worth  all  the  privileges  of  the  twelve. 


86  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

SON  of  Man,  they  tell  me  that  Thy  crown  has 
faded.  They  are  wrong;  it  was  never  so 
bright  as  now.  To  Thee  there  was  ever  but 
one  crown — Charity ;  to  this  end  wert  Thou  born 
and  for  this  cause  earnest  Thou  into  the  world. 
Men  have  mistaken  the  nature  of  Thy  glory. 
Like  Nathanael,  they  have  seen  Thy  lustre  in 
a  bauble ;  and  when  the  bauble  has  broken  they 
have  said  that  Thou  hast  faded.  But  in  truth 
Thou  hast  had  to  wait  for  Thy  glory,  O  Christ ; 
it  is  only  fully  in  sight  now.  Charity  is  the 
youngest-born  child  of  Thy  Father.  There 
have  been  days  of  prophecy,  days  of  eloquence, 
days  of  doctrine,  days  of  creed  and  confession; 
but  charity  was  still  a  child.  It  is  but  yesterday 
that  we  have  begun  to  descend  on  Thy  steps ;  but 
at  last  the  dawn  is  breaking!  Above  the  creed 
there  has  sounded  the  cry — the  cry  of  wounded 
humanity.  We  used  to  ask  how  we  were  to  as- 
cend with  Thee  to  heaven ;  we  are  now  inquiring 
how  we  are  to  descend  with  Thee  to  earth.  We 
cannot  get  deep  enough  down  until  we  get  into 
Thy  chariot;  our  brother's  rags  are  too  loath- 
some to  us  till  we  have  sight  of    Thee.     But 


NATHANAEL  THE  INVIGORATED      87 

Thou  hast  heightened  my  helpfulness  by  height- 
ening my  standard  of  man.  It  is  not  pity  that 
I  need;  it  is  praise.  It  is  not  tears  that  I 
need;  it  is  triumph.  It  is  not  heaviness  that  I 
need ;  it  is  hope.  Others  can  show  me  the  vile 
raiment  of  the  prodigal;  Thou  pointest  to  the 
robe  that  is  awaiting  him.  Others  can  tell  me 
he  is  despised;  Thy  look  follows  him  afar  off. 
Others  with  a  passing  tear  can  leave  him  among 
the  swine;  Thou  preparest  for  him  the  music 
in  the  house  of  the  Father.  Take  us  into  Thy 
descending  chariot,  O  Son  of  Man! 


CHAPTER  V 

PETER  THE   EMBOLDENED 

There  is  no  figure  in  the  New  Testament 
Gallery  which  presents  to  the  eye  such  a  mix- 
ture of  simplicity  and  enigma  as  that  of  Simon 
Peter.  To  outward  appearance  his  character 
may  be  read  on  the  surface.  He  is  not  a  theolo- 
gian like  John  the  Baptist;  he  is  not  a  mystic 
like  John  the  Evangelist;  he  is  a  plain,  blunt 
man  that  speaks  the  language  of  the  common  day 
and  breathes  the  wants  of  the  passing  hour. 
He  is  more  like  an  open  book  than  is  any  other 
figure  in  the  Gallery.  We  feel  that  we  have  met 
him  often,  that  we  shall  meet  him  many  times 
again.  He  is  one  of  those  men  who  on  a  super- 
ficial view  promise  to  offer  a  very  easy  sub- 
ject of  study.  And  yet  the  promise  is  a  delusion. 
Among  the  spectators  of  that  Gallery  there  has 

been  probably  more  disagreement  about  the  char- 
88 


PETER  THE  EMBOLDENED  89 

acter  of  Simon  Peter  than  about  the  character 
of  any  other  representative  of  New  Testament 
life.  It  very  often  happens  that  the  men  and 
women  we  meet  in  this  world  who  seem  most 
open  and  above-board  are  precisely  those  who 
prove  the  most  difficult  to  read.  Simon  Peter 
is  one  of  these.  He  not  only  seems,  but  he 
is,  above-board.  There  is  nothing  sinister, 
nothing  secret,  nothing  underhand;  his  words 
and  deeds  convey  exactly  the  meaning  he  in- 
tends them  to  convey.  Yet  at  the  close  of  our 
inspection  we  find  ourselves  entangled  in  what 
appears  to  be  a  web  of  inconsistencies  from 
which  there  is  no  hope  of  extrication.  We 
seem  to  be  confronted  by  a  life  of  opposing 
qualities — sometimes  touching  the  heavens,  at 
others  coming  perilously  near  the  nether  world 
— now  in  the  heights  of  ecstasy,  anon  in  the 
depths  of  despair — to-day  winning  our  admira- 
tion, to-morrow  exciting  a  feeling  akin  to  re- 
pulsion. The  life,  in  fact,  alternates  between 
cowardice  and  bravery.  These  are  the  poles  be- 
twixt which  he  wavers.  Every  great  thing  he 
does  comes  from  a  moment  of  bravery;    every 


90  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

mean  act  to  which  he  stoops  comes  from  a  mo- 
ment  of  cowardice.  The  most  cursory  examina- 
tion  will  make  this  clear. 
^  The  symbol  of  his  whole  life  is  the  sea-walk- 
ing. That  is  in  miniature  the  picture  of  his  en- 
tire character.  We  see  him  for  an  instant  on  the 
top  of  the  wave,  daring  a  deed  which  none  of  his 
compeers  could  have  dared;  the  next  he  is 
shrieking  with  abject  terror,  'Lord,  save  me!' 
And  the  picture  gives  no  outward  cause  for  this. 
We  see  no  increase  of  the  storm.  The  wind  has 
not  heightened;  the  waves  have  not  swollen; 
the  sea  does  not  look  more  scowling  than  when 
he  planted  his  foot  upon  its  bosom.  It  is  a 
struggle  pure  and  simple  between  bravery  in  his 
own  breast  and  cowardice  in  his  own  breast. 
And  this  picture,  as  I  have  said,  is  the  keynote  to 
every  incident  of  his  life.  He  makes  professions 
of  loyalty  to  Jesus  far  beyond  those  of  his  breth- 
ren; in  an  hour  of  real  danger  he  shows  the 
courage  to  maintain  them — he  draws  a  sword 
in  the  garden  against  heavy  odds.  Yet  within 
a  few  hours  this  man  quails  before  the  question 
of  a  servant-girl,  and  denies  the  Lord  whom  he 


PETER  THE  EMBOLDENED  91 

loves!  I  see  again  no  adequate  cause  for  the 
change;  it  must  have  come  from  a  tremor  in 
his  own  soul.  Once  more.  He  was  one  of  the 
first  to  recognise  the  claims  of  the  Gentiles. 
Bravely  did  he  stand  forth  as  the  champion  of 
Gentile  freedom  at  a  time  when  the  thought 
was  exciting  deep  animosities.  For  ventilating 
that  thought  Stephen  had  paid  the  penalty  with 
his  life.  For  ventilating  that  thought  the  con- 
vert Paul  had  been  forced  to  retire  into  tempo- 
rary exile.  It  was  at  such  a  moment  that  Peter's 
voice  was  raised  in  courageous  vindication  of  a 
universal  Gospel.  Yet,  within  a  few  brief  years, 
this  same  man  goes  down  to  Antioch,  and  in 
the  face  of  far  less  danger  keeps  aloof  from  the 
Gentile  converts!  Again  I  say  I  fail  to  recog- 
nise an  adequate  outward  cause  for  the  change. 
The  cause,  whatever  it  is,  is  within  the  man. 
His  soul  is  a  battlefield  between  bravery  and 
cowardice;  and  here  contend  for  the  mastery 
of  his  heart  the  two  most  opposite  things  in  life 
— the  heroism  of  the  soldier  and  the  abjectness 
of  the  poltroon. 

Here,  then,  is  a  subject  for  the  psychologist. 


92  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

We  want  to  know  why  it  was  that  within  the 
soul  of  this  man  there  could  dwell  such  con- 
flicting elements.  We  can  understand  a  mix- 
ture of  doubt  and  faith,  we  can  imagine  a  union 
of  weakness  and  strength,  we  can  comprehend 
the  existence  of  a  natural  placidness  side  by 
side  with  the  possibility  of  flashing  fire;  but 
the  co-existence  of  bravery  and  cowardice,  the 
union  of  the  hero  and  the  faint-heart — that  is 
something  which  challenges  the  philosopher  and 
calls  for  explanation. 

Let  me  begin  by  giving  the  popular  expla- 
nation. It  is  this:  *  Peter  is  set  forth  as  an  ex- 
ample of  the  principle,  "  Let  him  that  thinketh 
he  standeth  take  heed  lest  he  fall. "  He  is  a  mon- 
ument of  the  fact  that  men  are  liable  to  fail  in 
their  strongest  qualities  unless  periodically  re- 
newed by  Divine  Grace.  Peter  was  by  nature  a 
brave  man.  He  possessed  a  soul  of  fire  which 
made  him  forget  his  own  limitations,  which  drove 
hirn  instantaneously  into  work  beyond  his  power. 
He  lived  by  confidence  in  his  own  strength,  and 
he  overrated  his  own  strength.  He  was  one 
of  those  men  to  whom  preliminary  success  is 


PETER  THE  EMBOLDENED  93 

necessary.  If  his  first  charge  were  successful, 
he  would  carry  all  before  him.  But  if  checked 
in  the  assault,  he  would  sink  suddenly,  utterly, 
ignominiously.  All  his  courage  would  desert 
him.  A  great  reaction  would  come,  in  which  the 
once  powerful  heart  would  become  prostrate,  in 
which  the  spirit  ready  to  dare  all  things  would 
bow  itself  to  the  dust — conveying  the  moral  to 
all  self-confident  souls  that  the  highest  human 
gift  needs  to  be  supported  from  above.' 

Now,  without  for  a  moment  disputing  the  truth 
of  the  moral,  this  is  not  my  view  of  the  character 
of  Simon  Peter  as  delineated  in  the  Gospel  Gal- 
lery. I  must  repeat  that  this  Gallery  is  a  record 
of  transformations,  in  which  each  man  passes 
from  a  lower  into  a  higher  self.  But  the  view 
here  adduced  would  make  Peter's  higher  self  the 
original  element  and  his  later  self  the  decline. 
The  whole  picture,  as  I  take  it,  is  based  upon  an 
opposite  conception.  Instead  of  being  by  na- 
ture the  courageous  man  we  portray,  the  Peter 
of  the  Gallery  is  introduced  to  us  as  a  man  of 
extreme  timidity — one  of  those  trembling,  shrink- 
ing souls  that  suggest  rather  the  girl  than  the 


94  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

youth.  We  shall  go  wrong,  in  my  opinion,  if 
we  do  not  start  from  this  basis.  I  admit  that 
we  are  dealing  with  an  inconsistent  character; 
but  let  us  not  mistake  the  nature  of  the  incon- 
sistency. The  inconsistency  of  Peter  lies  in 
his  strength  and  not  in  his  weakness.  The  in- 
consistency is  the  Divine  thing  about  him — 
the  thing  that  brings  him  nearest  to  his  Mas- 
ter. It  lies  not  in  the  fact  that  a  brave  man 
periodically  becomes  a  coward,  but  that  a  cow- 
ardly man  periodically  becomes  brave.  It  is  as 
if  a  miser  were  suddenly  to  give  an  enormous 
subscription  to  a  charitable  institution;  the 
subscription,  and  not  the  miserhness,  is  the 
thing  to  be  accounted  for.  Our  wonder  should 
begin,  not  where  Peter  sinks,  but  where  he 
stands  upon  the  wave — not  where  he  denies  his 
Lord,  but  where  he  vows  to  die  with  Him.  To 
take  such  a  view  is  not  only  more  consonant  with 
the  picture,  it  is  really  more  just  to  Peter.  It 
places  his  character  on  a  higher  level.  To  fall 
from  an  original  eminence  implies  a  moral  stain ; 
but  to  rise  to  a  height  which  you  have  not  yet 
acquired  the  adequate  strength   to  maintain — 


PETER  THE  EMBOLDENED  95 

this  is  but  a  sign  of  weakness,  and  ought  to  be 
a  ground  of  sympathy. 

From  this  point  of  view  I  should  be  disposed 
to  divide  the  Hfe  of  Peter  into  three  periods. 
The  jfirst  is  the  time  when  timidity  reigns  su- 
preme. The  second  is  the  stage  in  which  there 
begins  a  struggle  between  timidity  and  a  new 
principle — courage.  The  third  is  that  period 
in  which  the  new  principle  vanquishes  the  old 
and  courage  becomes  the  dominant  note  of  his 
life. 

First,  then.  Peter  originally  appears  in  an 
attitude  of  constitutional  timidity.  You  say. 
Was  he  not  a  fisherman — one  who  is  supposed 
to  buffet  the  winds  and  the  waves  and  look  with 
scorn  upon  the  elements  of  danger!  Yes;  and 
has  it  never  struck  you  with  surprise  that  the 
earliest  instance  of  timidity  we  meet  in  the  Gos- 
pels is  just  among  Christ's  little  band  of  fisher- 
men— of  whom  Peter  was  one!  I  have  often 
marvelled  that  when  that  squall  burst  upon  the 
bark  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee  these  men  manifested 
such  abject  trepidation.  Fancy  a  company  of 
English    sailors    overtaken    by    a    sudden   gale 


96  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

and  giving  vent  to  their  feelings  in  a  simulta- 
neous shriek  of  terror — 'Save  us,  we  perish!' 
But  it  is  precisely  such  a  fancy  that  explains 
the  mystery.  For,  these  men  are  not  English; 
they  are  at  the  opposite  remove  from  the  Eng- 
lishman. The  fishermen  of  England,  the  mar- 
iners of  England,  the  very  tourists  of  England, 
have  become  so  endeared  to  the  sea  that  even 
its  storms  bring  a  sense  of  exhilaration.  But 
to  the  son  of  Judah  the  sea  was  always  a  horror. 
Jonah  was  no  exceptional  case  when  he  ran  to  sea 
to  escape  the  presence  of  the  Lord  God.  It 
was  to  all  his  countrymen  the  one  region  where 
the  presence  of  the  Lord  God  could  not  be  traced. 
Although  the  exigencies  of  daily  life  demanded 
from  the  men  of  Galilee  the  prevalence  of  the 
fisherman's  calling,  I  do  not  think  it  was  for  them 
a  voluntary  profession.  I  think  the  fishermen 
were  the  most  timid  set  of  the  community — 
as  the  shepherds  were  the  bravest.  I  have  no 
doubt  they  went  out  into  the  deep  with  fear  and 
trembling,  inquired  anxiously  the  signs  of  the 
sky,  experienced  during  the  voyage  all  the  palpi- 
tations of  the  shrinking  heart,  and  thanked  God 


PETER  THE  EMBOLDENED  97 

fervently  when  they  encountered  no  gale.  *We 
have  left  all,  and  followed  Thee,'  said  Peter  to 
the  Lord,  speaking  for  himself  and  his  fellow- 
fishermen.  But  in  truth  neither  he  nor  they  had 
made  any  sacrifice.  They  were  very  glad  to  get 
rid  of  their  calling  on  the  chance  of  something 
else.  That  'something  else'  was  precarious; 
but  the  sea  was  more  precarious  still.  We 
err  if  we  imagine  that  these  men  left  a  comfort- 
able living.  They  left  a  struggling,  and,  to  their 
mind,  a  dangerous  mode  of  subsistence — a  life 
which  heredity  had  made  full  of  unpleasant  asso- 
ciations, and  which  the  national  instinct  shrank 
from.  It  is  written  of  Christ  that  He  once  ^con- 
strained His  disciples  to  get  into  a  ship*;  that 
is  what  life's  struggle  always  did  to  the  men  of 
Galilee. 

Peter  carried  his  lack  of  courage  into  the 
kingdom.  He  left  his  boat  behind  him,  but  he 
left  not  behind  him  his  timidity.  Christ  took 
men  into  His  kingdom  with  their  old  garments 
on;  the  ring  and  the  robe  were  an  after-consid- 
eration.    He  let  them  come  with  all  the  elements 

of  their  imperfection  clinging  round  them — with 
7 


98  THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

the  hand  unringed,  with  the  feet  unshod,  with  the 
vesture  unadorned.  Within  His  holy  temple  the 
votaries  again  and  again  revealed  traces  of  old 
culture — the  remains  of  a  former  day.  There  are 
incidents  in  Peter's  life  which  are  commonly  at- 
tributed to  bold  presumption,  but  which,  to  my 
mind,  suggest  only  the  survival  of  this  primi- 
tive culture — the  spirit  of  extreme  timidity. 
Take  that  memorable  occasion  on  which  the  Mas- 
ter broke  to  His  disciples  the  tidings  of  His 
approaching  death  and  when  Peter  exclaimed 
with  hot  repudiation,  *Be  it  far  from  Thee, 
Lord ;  this  will  not  be  unto  Thee ! '  It  is  com- 
monly set  down  to  his  impertinent  forwardness. 
I  think  it  was  the  voice  of  shrinking  fear.  No 
doubt  devotion  to  Jesus  counted  for  something; 
but  they  were  all  devoted  as  well  as  Peter. 
We  have  to  find  a  reason  why  Peter  was  the 
spokesman.  And  I  think  that  reason  lay, 
not  in  his  being  the  most  impertinent,  but  in 
his  being  the  most  timid.  He  shrank  from  the 
thought  of  danger.  He  sought  to  figure  a  bright- 
er destiny.  With  a  sailor's  superstition,  he  cried 
out  against  the  omen  as  if  he  would  avert  it, 


PETER  THE  EMBOLDENED  99 

bear  it  down.  He  is  an  object  rather  for 
compassion  than  for  recrimination.  Will  it  be 
said  that  the  sternness  of  Christ's  reproof,  *Get 
thee  behind  me,  Satan ! '  is  at  variance  with  such 
a  view.^  But  to  whom  was  that  reproof  admin- 
istered.? To  Peter.?  No — to  Satan — to  the 
tempter  of  the  wilderness.  We  are  told  that 
after  the  temptation  Satan  left  Him  'for  a  sea- 
son.' This  implies  that  he  was  to  come  back. 
He  had  come  back  now,  and  he  had  come  back 
with  the  old  temptation — to  reject  the  cross  for 
the  crown,  to  choose  the  purple  instead  of  the 
poverty,  to  sway  by  law  in  place  of  stooping 
by  love.  It  was  not  to  Peter  that  Christ  ad- 
ministered the  rebuke.  It  was  not  Peter  that 
He  saw  before  Him;  it  was  the  tempter  once 
more — that  tempter  whom  He  had  already  sim- 
ilarly and  summarily  dismissed.  The  disciple 
who  had  just  been  commended  for  having  a 
revelation  which  flesh  and  blood  had  not  com- 
municated would  never  have  been  addressed  by 
the  name  of  *  Satan ' ! 

There  is  another  incident  commonly  attributed 
to  the  presumption  of  Peter  which  I  think  has 


loo        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

its  source  in  his  timidity.  I  allude  to  that  mo- 
ment on  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration  when  he 
exclaimed,  *  Methinks  it  is  good  to  be  here ;  and 
let  us  make  three  tabernacles — one  for  Thee  and 
one  for  Moses  and  one  for  Elias!'  The  dicta- 
tion of  a  plan  to  Jesus  is  startling  enough;  but 
I  think  it  was  really  a  cry  of  fear.  The  refrain 
of  that  death -prophecy  was  still  ringing  in  his 
ears.  He  attributed  to  Jesus  the  dream  of  a 
Messianic  conquest.  He  thought,  if  that  dream 
could  be  dispelled,  the  death  and  danger  prefig- 
ured would  melt  away.  If,  instead  of  battling 
with  the  rude  world,  the  Son  of  Man  would  pitch 
His  tabernacle  on  a  height,  if  He  would  estab- 
lish His  seat  on  the  top  of  the  mountain  far 
from  the  din  and  strife  of  men,  if  He  would  sit 
there  till  suppliants  came  to  Him  and  descend 
not  Himself  into  the  lists  of  human  competi- 
tion, it  seemed  to  Peter  that  the  new  regime 
would  cease  to  be  one  of  storm  and  stress,  of 
difficulty  and  danger,  of  sorrow  and  sacrifice, 
but  would  become  a  haven  of  peace,  a  home  of 
tranquillity,  a  place  where  body  and  soul  could 
alike    find    repose.      It    was    his    constitutional 


PETER  THE  EMBOLDENED  loi 

shrinking  from  peril  that  made  him  wish  to  re- 
main on  the  hill. 

But,  all  this  time,  there  was  growing  up  in 
Simon  Peter  a  new  and  higher  life.  Even 
amid  the  survivals  of  his  old  culture  the  second 
stage  of  his  spiritual  history  had  already  opened. 
That  second  period  is  one  of  struggle — the 
struggle  between  the  original  timidity  and  a 
new  principle  which  stimulated  to  courage. 
Jacob  had  begun  to  wrestle  with  his  angel  and, 
though  baffled  oft,  had  refused  to  let  him  go. 
Whence  came  this  element  of  bravery.?  It  was 
born  of  love.  There  is  no  mystery  about  it ;  you 
may  see  the  same  thing  every  day.  I  have 
seen  a  soul  of  extraordinary  timidity  kindled  into 
a  courage  which  Caesar  might  have  envied; 
the  fire  came  from  love.  One  who  all  through 
life  had  shrunk  from  the  slightest  hint  of  danger 
I  have  known  to  rush  into  a  burning  house  to 
save  her  infant  from  the  flames.  And  yet  it 
does  not  follow  that  at  this  moment  the  consti- 
tutional timidity  was  dead.  The  rain  may  still 
fall  when  the  sun  is  shining.  Doubtless,  where 
the  element  of  love  was  absent,  this  woman  would 


I02         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

for  many  a  day  subside  into  her  old  cowardice 
in  the  ordinary  trifles  of  life,  and  to  the  eye  of 
friends  and  companions  would  reveal  no  spiritual 
change.  None  the  less  the  spiritual  change  would 
be  there,  and  sooner  or  later  it  would  leaven  the 
whole  nature;  for  love  to  one  creates  love  to 
all,  and  the  courage  inspired  by  my  single  pure 
affection  will  at  last  become  my  courage  for 
every  danger  of  my  brother-man. 

Now,  there  had  come  to  Peter  one  great  love. 
He  had  met  with  a  life  which  peculiarly  domi- 
nated him.  It  dominated  him  by  stilling  him, 
calming  him.  The  very  timidity  of  Peter  made 
Christ  to  him  a  special  rest;  in  that  tabernacle 
his  trembling  spirit  could  repose.  And  in  his 
devotion  to  Jesus  he  had  moments  of  a  new  ex- 
perience—  courage.  At  first  it  came  only  in 
thought.  He  fought  battles  for  Christ  in  the  im- 
agination, stood  with  Him  in  vision  on  the  stormy 
sea,  died  with  Him  in  the  realms  of  fancy. 
Let  no  one  say  that  this  profited  nothing.  All 
virtue,  all  vice,  begins  in  thinking.  The  man 
who  has  fought  a  successful  moral  battle  in  his 
imagination,    is    already    more    than    half   vie- 


PETER  THE  EMBOLDENED  103 

torious,  for  it  is  in  imagination  that  Sin  looks 
brightest  and  virtue  seems  most  hard  to  win. 
He  may  fail  betimes  in  the  actual  struggle; 
fancy  may  drop  her  lamp  for  a  moment;  he 
may  turn  his  eyes  from  the  Christ  to  the  sea  and 
the  winds  raging.  But  let  him  faint  not. 
Success  is  coming.  The  battle  in  the  soul  is 
the  real  test.  The  victory  in  fancy  has  guar- 
anteed the  triumph  in  fact;  and  he  who  has 
conquered  in  the  spirit  will  not  long  be  worsted 
in  the  flesh. 

There  came  to  Simon  Peter  such  a  time  of  ab- 
solute victory.  There  came  a  time  when  the 
struggle  with  his  angel  ceased  and  when  he 
glowed  in  the  unclouded  sun  of  Peniel.  The  final 
stage  of  his  spiritual  experience  is  that  of  un- 
broken courage.  Timidity  vanishes  altogether, 
and  in  its  room  there  comes  a  calm  and  habitual 
fearlessness — not  the  spasmodic  burst  of  con- 
fidence which  marked  his  earliest  days,  but  a 
fixed  and  abiding  bravery  pervading  all  his  life 
and  directing  all  his  way. 

How  do  we  know  that  this  was  the  final  stage 
of  Simon  Peter  .^    Because  we  have  in  our  pos- 


I04         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

session  a  letter  written  in  his  mature  life  which 
embodies  precisely  this  spirit.  I  think  the  let- 
ters of  the  New  Testament  have  each  a  special 
characteristic,  a  quality  which  distinguishes  them 
from  beginning  to  end.  The  Epistle  to  the  Ro- 
mans has  the  quality  of  reasoning.  The  Epistle 
to  the  Galatians  is  a  letter  of  self-defence.  The 
Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  is  a  eulogy  on  Christ's 
imperialism.  The  Epistle  to  the  Philippians  is 
in  praise  of  Christian  sacrifice.  The  Epistles  to 
Timothy  are  a  note  of  exhortation.  The  Epistles 
of  John  are  calls  to  brotherhood.  The  Epis- 
tle of  James  is  a  plea  for  practical  religion. 
What  is  the  Epistle  of  Peter.? — I  mean  his  first, 
or  more  undisputed,  epistle.  What  is  its  char- 
acteristic ?  Can  we  put  our  hand  upon  any  chord 
which  pervades  all  its  utterances.-*  I  think  we 
can.  To  my  mind  there  is  one  theme  which 
runs  through  this  letter  as  clearly  as  an  air  runs 
through  the  variations  in  a  piece  of  music.  That 
theme  is  courage.  Peter  has  taken  for  his 
subject  the  counterpart  of  his  former  self. 
More  than  any  document  of  the  New  Testament 
this  letter  is  the  Epistle  of  Courage.    6ther  things 


PETER  THE  EMBOLDENED  105 

are  accidental;  this  is  its  essence,  its  glory,  its 
crown.  In  every  note,  in  every  bar,  in  every  ca- 
dence, we  find  the  man  stepping  over  his  dead  self 
and  revealing  the  newness  of  life ;  the  Peter  on  the 
top  of  the  wave  looks  down  upon  the  Peter  sink- 
ing in  the  depths  and  cries,  *  You  were  wrong ! ' 
The  very  first  key  struck  is  one  of  reversal, 

*  Blessed  be  God,  who  has  begotten  us  into  a 
lively  hope' — a  hope  pervading  the  life — not 
coming  periodically  in  fits  and  starts,  but  tak- 
ing up  its  abode  within  the  soul.  Listen  again ! 
— '  We  are  redeemed  by  the  precious  blood  of 
Christ  as  of  a  lamb  without  blemish  and  with- 
out spot. '  Where  is  now  the  rebuke,  '  Be  it  far 
from  Thee,  Lord ;  this  shall  not  be  unto  Thee ' ! 
— the  thing  from  which  he  recoiled  has  become 

*  precious. '  Again — '  The  God  of  all  grace, 
after  ye  have  suffered  awhile,  make  you  perfect, 
stablish,  strengthen,  settle  you.'  What  a  com- 
ment on  his  own  experience!  To  be  no  longer 
spasmodic,  fitful,  wayward,  but  '  stablished, ' 
'  settled ' — it  was  the  realisation  of  all  his  wants, 
and  therefore  it  seemed  to  him  the  crown  of  all 
perfection.     And  then,  notice  the  boldness  of  the 


io6        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

wish  that  we  should  not  be  made  perfect  till 
after  we  have  *  suffered  awhile ' !  What  a  note  of 
autobiography  is  here !  Where  is  now  the  call  for 
the  three  tabernacles  that  he  might  be  free, 
from  the  troubles  of  the  plain!  To  him  in  his 
retrospect  these  troubles  have  become  the  glo- 
rious things.  It  is  the  *  trial  of  faith '  which 
he  declares  to  be  ^  more  precious  than  gold. ' 
In  looking  back  he  has  such  a  reverence  for 
the  crosses  of  his  life  that  he  would  not  value 
perfection  without  them.  The  suffering  is  to 
him  part  of  the  privilege — '  Count  it  all  joy ! ' 
he  cries.  He  claims  the  cloud  as  essential  to  the 
clearness,  the  night  as  instrumental  to  the  noon. 
The  evening  and  not  the  morning  is  Peter's 
golden  hour.  The  morning  was  leaden  and 
grey;  the  evening  is  light  and  glorious.  The 
morning  made  faint  with  fear;  the  evening 
makes  strong  with  sanguineness.  The  morn- 
ing saw  his  spirit  crouch  in  a  coward's  lair; 
the  evening  leads  him  forth  to  dwell  in  the  path 
of  danger.  The  motto  of  his  maturity  is  this: 
*  Forasmuch  as  Christ  has  suffered  in  the  flesh, 
arm  yourselves  also  with  the  same  mind. ' 


PETER  THE  EMBOLDENED  107 

1  THANK  Thee,  O  Lord,  that  there  is  wait- 
ing for  each  of  us  a  courage  in  reserve. 
This  man  when  he  started  was  quite  unfit  for 
the  work  that  lay  before  him ;  he  had  not  nerve 
to  face  Ufe's  storm.  But  it  all  came — came 
with  the  day  and  with  the  hour;  it  was  reserved 
in  heaven  till  the  crisis  moment.  I  too,  Lord, 
am  unfit  for  the  struggle  of  life ;  if  I  attempt  to 
walk  upon  its  sea  I  shall  inevitably  sink  and  per- 
ish. I  have  not  the  courage  to  contemplate  the 
winds  and  the  waves;  I  am  tempted  to  fly  to 
the  mountain  and  build  a  tabernacle  there.  But 
in  the  light  of  this  man's  experience  I  will  not. 
What  know  I  but  that  my  courage  may  be  sleep- 
ing beside  the  sea,  waiting  till  I  come  up  and 
claim  it!  What  know  I  but  that  my  treasure 
may  be  hid  in  the  very  field  which  seems  so  deso- 
late and  lonely!  Hast  Thou  not  said  even  of 
Thyself,  '  My  hour  is  not  yet  come ' !  I  may 
bear  a  cross  on  Friday  which  I  could  not  have 
borne  on  the  past  Monday.  If  I  cannot  bear  it 
on  Monday  shall  I  say  to  my  soul,  *  Flee  as  a 
bird  to  your  mountain ' !  Nay,  my  Christ,  for 
there  may  be  potent  powers  of  courage  sleeping 


io8         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

in  the  folds  of  Friday.  There  are  angels  in  the 
wilderness  who  only  show  themselves  in  the 
fasting  hour.  There  are  angels  in  Gethsemane 
who  only  reveal  themselves  amid  my  crying 
and  tears.  Shall  I  wait  for  the  breaking  of  the 
cloud  before  I  face  the  rain !  Nay,  for  my  char- 
iot may  be  in  the  cloud.  I  shall  come  with- 
out strength  to  the  storm;  I  shall  go  without 
weapons  to  the  wilderness;  I  shall  repair 
without  guarantee  to  the  Garden;  I  shall  jour- 
ney without  courage  to  the  Cross.  My  shin- 
ing will  come  with  the  shadow;  my  power  will 
wake  with  the  pain;  my  courage  will  rise  with 
the  conflict ;  my  fortitude  will  dawn  with  the  fire ; 
my  nerve  will  be  strengthened  with  the  need; 
my  resource  will  be  ready  with  the  rain-cloud; 
my  boldness  will  be  born  with  the  breeze.  I 
shall  walk  with  Thee  by  faith  till  the  fulness  of 
the  time. 


CHAPTER  VI 

NICODEMUS   THE   INSTRUCIED 

I  AM  glad  that  among  the  figures  of  the  New 
Testament  Gallery  there  is  a  place  assigned  to 
the  student.  Great  as  is  our  satisfaction  to  see 
an  acknowledgment  of  life's  practical  callings, 
there  would,  I  think,  have  been  an  omission  if 
there  had  been  no  portrayal  of  the  intellectual 
struggles  of  the  soul.  There  is  such  a  portray- 
al. It  appears  in  the  portrait  of  Nicodemus. 
He  is  distinctively  the  man  of  study — the  man  of 
the  night-lamp.  I  do  not  mean  that  he  repre- 
sents exclusively  the  life  of  the  university.  The 
student  is  limited  to  no  calling.  He  may  be  a 
fisherman  like  Peter  or  a  tax-gatherer  like 
Matthew  or  a  tentmaker  like  Paul.  Student 
life  is  not  a  profession;  it  is  a  state  of  mind. 
There  are  very  few  of  us  who  have  not  moments 

of  the  night-lamp — times  when  we  sit  down  and 
^09 


no        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

ponder  on  the  mysteries  by  which  we  are  sur- 
rounded. Even  the  fooHsh  virgins  have  their 
lamps — seasons  when  the  seriousness  of  life 
breaks  through  the  crust  of  frivolity  and  makes 
them  ask  the  questions  which  are  habitual  to 
the  wise.  The  satisfactory  thing  about  the 
portraying  of  Nicodemus  is  not  that  it  recognises 
a  particular  profession,  but  that  it  recognises 
a  secret  moment  of  every  human  heart.  It 
lifts  the  veil  from  the  innermost  life  of  all  men 
and  women,  and  gives  us  a  glimpse  into  that  sa- 
cred shrine  which,  after  all,  is  the  noblest  part 
of  man. 

In  this  picture  of  Nicodemus  there  are  ex- 
hibited three  phases  of  the  student  mind;  one 
of  them  is  good,  the  other  two  need  correc- 
tion. We  glance  at  each  of  these.  We  begin 
with  that  which  I  have  called  good.  It  is  the 
tendency  expressed  in  the  saying  that  Nico- 
demus *came  to  Jesus  by  night.'  I  am  aware 
this  is  commonly  recorded  to  his  blame;  it  is 
attributed  to  cowardice.  I  do  not  think  this 
is  the  idea.  I  think  the  idea  is,  he  was  so 
eager  that  he  could  not  wait  till  the  morning. 


NICODEMUS  THE  INSTRUCTED       iii 

And  I  feel  sure  that  the  Fourth  Evangelist 
has  made  the  historical  fact  a  grand  symbol  both 
of  the  man  Nicodemus  and  of  the  student  life 
in  general.  Nicodemus  waits  not  for  light  to 
illumine  his  way.  He  comes  in  a  thick  fog 
—  groping,  stumbling.  The  portrait,  in  evi- 
dent support  of  the  metaphor,  introduces  him 
in  an  attitude  of  deplorable  ignorance;  he  has 
come  to  Christ,  lighted  by  a  single  star.  And 
in  this  the  picture  symbolises  the  initial  stage  of 
all  inquiry.  To  every  form  of  truth  the  student 
must  come  by  night;  he  must  accept  evidence 
which  is  less  than  demonstration.  People  talk 
as  if  Christianity  were  in  this  an  exceptional 
thing ;  they  see  in  its  demand  for  faith  an  ignor- 
ing of  the  claims  of  science.  But  every  scien- 
tific theory  makes  the  same  demand.  When 
Darwin  ventilated  the  doctrine  of  Evolution,  he 
did  not  say  it  had  been  proved.  What  he  did 
say  in  effect  was  this:  *I  have  found  a  key 
which  can  unlock  many  of  the  doors  of  this 
universe.  It  is  perhaps  the  key  which  is  meant 
to  unlock  all  the  doors.  I  will  try.  Encour- 
aged by  the  cases  I  have  established,   I  shall 


112         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

start  by  an  act  of  faith.  I  shall  assume  that  this 
is  the  one  key  to  the  kingdom  of  Nature.  I 
shall  apply  it  to  the  many  locks  as  I  have  ap- 
plied it  to  the  few.  It  may  become  Aladdin's 
lamp  to  me — may  open  the  secrets  of  creation 
and  unbar  the  gates  of  mystery.  I  shall  not 
wait  to  exhaust  the  facts  before  I  form  the 
theory;  I  shall  begin  with  the  theory  and  try 
if  it  will  fit  the  facts.  I  shall  be  content  to 
approach  the  Temple  of  Nature  with  only  a 
night-lamp  in  my  hand;  I  shall  not  linger  for 
the  dawn. ' 

And  this  is  the  true  source  of  all  discovery 
in  every  department  of  life.  Take  life  itself. 
With  what  a  very  small  amount  of  light  we  set 
out  to  face  the  world !  We  come  to  it  with  cer- 
tain theories  in  our  mind — some  gathered  from 
stray  testimonies,  some  derived  from  the  read- 
ing of  romances.  And  yet  with  this  slender 
equipment  we  go  forth  into  the  dark,  not  only 
without  trembling,  but  full  of  the  most  ardent 
hope — hope  which  in  the  large  majority  of 
cases  becomes  the  very  key  which  opens  to  us 
the  door.     But  it  is  in  the  sphere  of  knowledge 


NICODEMUS  THE  INSTRUCTED       113 

that  the  principle  is  most  conspicuously,  most 
trenchantly  true,  and  specially  in  that  sphere 
which  we  call  the  knowledge  of  God.  To  a 
mind  encompassed  with  doubts  of  a  Divine 
Presence  in  the  world  I  would  say :  *  Follow 
the  method  which  originated  the  doctrine  of 
Evolution.  Start  with  God  as  a  working  hy- 
pothesis. Do  not  search  for  Him  in  the  uni- 
verse, but  search  the  universe  through  Him. 
Begin  by  assuming  Him.  Say,  I  have  found  in 
Him  a  key  which  fits  several  locks;  I  want  to 
try  it  on  the  other  locks.  Let  your  coming  be 
by  night — the  night  of  faith.  Do  not  wait  till 
the  shadows  have  cleared  away  and  the  un- 
clouded Divine  glory  is  revealed.  Approach 
the  universe  with  a  theory — the  theory  that 
there  is  a  God.  Try  the  doors  with  that  theory 
and  see  if  they  will  open.  You  will  be  sur- 
prised at  your  success.  You  will  have  as  many 
trophies  as  the  doctrine  of  Evolution — nay, 
this  theory  will  explain  Evolution  itself  and 
make  it  intelligible  to  all  men. '  There  is  no  at- 
titude of  mind  so  seemly  in  the  student,  there 

is  no  search  for  knowledge  at  once  so  scientific 
8 


114         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

and  so  reverent,  as  that  which  permits  faith 
to  precede  full  enlightenment — which  allows 
man  to  come  by  night. 

This  brings  me  to  the  second  phase  to  which 
the  mind  of  the  student  is  subject.  I  mean 
the  tendency  to  sink  his  own  individuality  in 
the  life  of  the  race,  or  what  he  calls  the  spirit 
of  the  age.  This  appears  very  prominently  in 
the  case  of  Nicodemus.  Other  men  when  they 
come  into  the  presence  of  Jesus  address  Him 
as  individual  suppliants ;  they  say,  '  Have 
mercy  upon  me!'  But  this  man  enters  into 
Christ's  presence  with  quite  a  unique  mode  of 
address.  He  accosts  Him  as  if  he  were  speak- 
ing in  the  name  of  a  corporation,  as  if  he  had 
been  deputed  to  carry  a  request  from  a  pub- 
lic body — *  Master,  we  know  that  Thou  art 
a  teacher  come  from  God.'  Here  again  the 
popular  view  is  that  he  is  influenced  by  fear 
— the  wish  not  to  commit  himself  to  a  personal 
opinion  regarding  Christ.  My  own  view  is  that 
he  is  influenced  purely  by  pride — the  pride  char- 
acteristic of  the  inquirer.  One  of  the  deep- 
est desires  of  every  student  is  to  be  thought  a 


NICODEMUS  THE  INSTRUCTED       115 

child  of  his  age — up  to  date,  as  the  phrase  goes. 
It  is  a  great  mistake  to  think  that  the  tendency 
of  intellectual  youth  is  personal  independence. 
Its  tendency  is  the  opposite — the  identifying 
of  personal  opinion  with  the  view  current  among 
the  highest  minds.  To  obtain  the  reputation  of 
this  identity,  to  be  called  a  true  son  of  the 
time,  the  inquirer  is  content  to  sacrifice  origi- 
nality. He  delights  to  repeat  the  opinions  of 
the  scientific,  to  quote  their  names,  to  air  their 
views;  he  begins  all  things  with  the  formula, 
'  We  know. ' 

Now,  this  is  the  position  in  which  I  would 
place  Nicodemus.  However  ignorant  he  him- 
self was,  he  belonged  to  a  guild  which  was  re- 
garded as  the  repository  of  Jewish  learning. 
With  the  opinions  of  that  guild  he  was  eager 
to  identify  himself.  He  did  not  wish  to  be 
thought  peculiar,  eccentric.  He  had  no  desire 
that  his  coming  to  Christ  should  be  interpreted 
as  a  mental  aberration.  He  was  eager  to 
make  it  clear  that  he  was  saying  nothing  which 
the  Pharisaic  party  might  not  thoroughly  en- 
dorse.    His  address  is  virtually  a  proposal  of 


ii6         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

terms — a  statement  of  the  conditions  on  which 
he  and  his  countrymen  would  be  wilHng  to 
accept  Jesus. 

You  will  observe,  Jesus  resents  this  corpo- 
rate mode  of  address  on  the  part  of  Nicodemus. 
I  used  to  wonder  why,  midway  in  His  speech. 
He  addresses  Nicodemus  as  if  he  were,  not 
one  man,  but  a  whole  company  of  men — says 
*  ye  '  instead  of  *  thou. '  But  the  reason  has  be- 
come clear.  Nicodemus  has  spoken  to  Jesus 
as  if  he  were  a  collective  body  of  men;  Jesus 
answers  him  as  if  he  were  a  collective  body 
of  men.  More  striking  still  is  the  fact  that  in 
His  answer  Jesus  also  assumes  a  collective 
capacity:  'Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  thee.  We 
speak  what  we  do  know  and  testify  what  we 
have  seen,  and  ye  receive  not  our  witness. '  It 
is  the  only  instance  I  know  in  the  whole  New 
Testament  in  which  our  Lord  speaks  of  Him- 
self in  the  plural  number.  He  says  on  one  oc- 
casion, *  If  a  man  love  Me,  My  Father  will  love 
him,  and  We  shall  come  and  take  up  our  abode 
with  him' ;  but  He  is  there  speaking  of  two 
— Himself  and  His  Father.     Here  He  speaks 


NICODEMUS  THE  INSTRUCTED       117 

in  His  own  person,  but  He  uses  the  editorial 
*  we. '  Can  any  man  fail  to  see  why !  It  is  a 
fine  piece  of  repartee.  Nicodemus  has  identi- 
fied himself  with  his  comrades;  Christ  identi- 
fies Himself  with  His  followers.  Nicodemus 
has  appealed  to  the  spirit  of  an  earthly  age; 
Christ  appeals  to  the  spirit  of  the  ages  in  heaven, 
to  the  mode  of  thinking  which  prevails  in  the 
upper  sanctuary,  to  the  fashion  of  a  world  which 
will  not  pass  away. 

And  let  us  remember  that  Christ  has  here 
put  His  hand  upon  a  real  weakness  of  Nico- 
demus and  those  whom  he  represents.  For 
this  original  tendency  of  student  life  is  one  which 
needs  to.be  corrected.  Specially  does  it  need  to 
be  corrected  in  the  religious  sphere — the  sphere 
of  Nicodemus.  The  man  engaged  in  a  study  of 
God  must  beware,  above  all  things,  of  losing 
himself  in  the  crowd.  To  him  at  that  moment 
there  is  opening  a  stage  of  tremendous  solem- 
nity—  the  sense  of  individual  responsibility. 
In  the  presence  of  that  thought  he  should  see 
the  whole  multitude  go  out  and  leave  him, 
alone.     The  spirit  of  the  age  should  count  for 


ii8         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

nothing,  except  so  far  as  it  corroborates  his 
own.  At  that  moment,  and  for  that  moment, 
he  should  feel  himself  the  only  man  in  the 
world,  standing  before  the  most  august  of  all 
problems,  and  bound  to  give  an  answer  from 
the  depths  of  his  own  soul.  Nicodemus  was 
confronting  one  who  had  come  to  reveal  this 
fact  of  individual  responsibility.  Nicodemus 
himself  had  belonged  to  another  regime.  The 
adherents  of  the  Jewish  faith  had  uniformly 
merged  the  individual  in  the  race.  The  man 
only  existed  for  the  sake  of  the  nation.  It 
was  to  her  that  the  promises  were  addressed; 
it  was  to  her  that  the  warnings  were  offered. 
The  motto  of  every  son  of  Israel  was,  '  My  life 
is  my  country.'  In  the  interest  of  that  country 
he  was  to  lose  himself,  in  the  fate  of  that  coun- 
try he  was  to  sink  himself.  The  personal  life 
was  to  be  absorbed  in  the  patriotic;  the  indi- 
vidual being  was  to  be  blended  with  the  exist- 
ence of  the  commonwealth.  Judaism  was  essen- 
tially a  national  religion — the  man  worshipped 
as  a  part  of  the  nation.  There  was  some  excuse 
for   Nicodemus   saying,    *  We  know. '     But  Jc' 


NICODEMUS  THE  INSTRUCTED       119 

sus  was  to  introduce  a  new  regime.  He  was  to 
tell  the  world  that  in  matters  of  faith  every 
man  was  to  God  a  kingdom.  He  was  to  pro- 
claim that  the  individual  and  not  the  nation 
was  now  to  bulk  largest  in  his  sight.  He  wai 
to  proclaim  that  the  Jewish  nation  would  pass 
away,  but  that  the  man  would  endure  foi 
ever.  He  was  to  proclaim  that  the  individual 
in  his  hour  of  religious  contemplation  ought  to 
separate  himself  sharply  from  his  environment. 
He  was  to  bid  him  enter  into  his  silent  room  and 
shut  the  door  and  pray  to  his  Father  in  secret 
— as  if  in  all  the  universe  there  were  none  other 
than  they  two.  The  spirit  of  the  age  was  to 
be  forgotten.  His  fellow-men  were  to  be  re- 
membered in  his  sympathy,  but  were  to  have 
no  influence  on  his  example.  He  was  to  feel 
himself  alone — alone  with  the  great  problem  of 
eternity,  alone  with  the  presence  of  God. 

Nicodemus  learned  in  this  interview  with 
Jesus  the  value  of  an  individual  soul,  the  ne- 
cessity that  it  should  be  lifted  into  a  higher  life 
and  born  into  a  world  which  was  independent 
of  Jewish  heredity.     How  do  we  know  that  he 


I20        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

learned  it?  Because  we  have  a  record  on  the 
subject.  This  man  appears  before  us  at  a  later 
date  and  reveals  himself  in  a  new  attitude.  In 
the  interval  the  atmosphere  has  changed.  Je- 
sus is  no  longer  the  object  of  a  kindly  and 
somewhat  contemptuous  patronage  on  the  part 
of  the  Sanhedrin.  That  august  body  has  been 
stirred  with  fear.  The  movement  which  at 
first  seemed  capable  of  being  incorporated 
within  its  own  boundaries  has  flashed  out  in 
deadly  and  irreconcilable  antagonism;  and  the 
Jewish  Assembly,  which  yesterday  was  ready 
to  propose  terms  of  union,  is  to-day  animated 
by  only  one  desire — to  crush  and  annihilate  the 
rising  system.  The  Sanhedrin  is  eager  to  ar- 
rest Jesus.  It  had  the  penetration  to  perceive 
what  many  professing  Christians  have  not  per- 
ceived— that  Christianity  is  Christ,  and  that 
to  strike  at  Christianity  you  must  strike  at 
Christ.  It  knew  well  that  the  whole  force 
of  the  movement  centred  in  one  man,  and  that 
to  slay  the  one  man  was  to  destroy  the  entire 
army.  Accordingly,  this  supreme  court  re- 
solves to  lay  hands  on  Jesus.     But  there  is  one 


NICODEMUS  THE  INSTRUCTED       121 

dissenting  voice — the  voice  of  Nicodemus.  It 
is  the  last  voice  we  should  have  expected. 
We  are  disposed  to  say,  *  Is  this  the  man  vi^ho  a 
little  while  ago  was  eager  to  sink  himself  in  the 
spirit  of  the  age!'  He  now  stands  forth  op- 
posed to  the  age — stands  out  as  a  solitary  indi- 
vidual breasting  the  waves  of  a  crowd,  and  cries 
with  fearless  love  of  justice,  *  Does  our  law 
judge  any  man  before  it  hears  him!'  We 
marvel  at  the  spectacle.  It  is  not  that  we  see  a 
growing  stature — we  expect  time  to  bring  that. 
It  is  that  we  witness  a  transformation.  Nico- 
demus has  changed  his  weakness  into  a  strength. 
He  has  become  strong  in  the  very  point  in  which 
he  was  defective.  On  the  night  in  which  he 
stood  before  Jesus  he  was  unwilling  to  be  alone ; 
on  the  day  in  which  he  stands  before  the  San- 
hedrin  he  is  unwilling  to  be  in  company.  He 
asserts  the  right  of  his  own  individual  soul. 
He  is  a  fine  example  of  the  difference  between 
what  is  called  nature  and  what  is  called  grace. 
Nature  can  improve  a  man;  grace  transforms 
him. 

I  come  now  to  the  third  tendency  in  the  life 


122        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

of  the  inquirer.  It  is  the  pride  of  reason.  As 
applied  to  Christianity  it  takes  the  form  of 
trying  to  prove  Christ  from  the  outside — by 
something  not  connected  with  His  nature.  We 
see  this  with  Nicodemus.  He  says,  '  We  know 
that  Thou  art  a  teacher  come  from  God,  for  no 
man  can  do  these  miracles  that  Thou  doest 
except  God  be  with  him.'  The  answer  of 
Christ  is  striking  and  graphic — '  Verily,  verily, 
I  say  unto  thee,  Except  a  man  be  born  again 
he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God.'  The 
words,  as  I  take  it,  are  strongly  antithetical. 
Our  Lord  says :  *  Nicodemus,  you  claim  to 
have  arrived  at  knowledge.  A  man  makes  a 
great  profession  when  he  says,  I  know.  There 
is  something  which  must  come  before  knowl- 
edge, and  that  is  sight.  Unless  a  man  is  born 
with  a  special  faculty,  he  cannot  even  see  my 
kingdom — much  less  understand  it.  You  cannot 
reach  the  sense  of  my  power  by  a  ladder  of 
demonstration — though  you  should  mount  for 
ages  and  ages.  But  you  may  reach  it  in  a  mo- 
ment, in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  if  only  you 
can  find  the  wings  of  my  spirit.     If  it  come  to 


NICODEMUS  THE  INSTRUCTED       123 

you  at  all  it  must  come  in  a  flash,  in  a  thrill 
of  intuition,  in  a  glance  of  the  soul.  It  must 
be  seen,  not  proved;  and  the  man  who  sees 
it  gives  evidence  that  he  has  been  born  into  a 
world  with  larger  powers  than  are  at  the  command 
of  earth. ' 

We  may  illustrate  the  position  of  Nicodemus 
by  one  coming  to  an  artist  and  saying,  *  I  know 
that  the  city  of  Edinburgh  is  beautiful,  because, 
if  otherwise,  every  one  would  not  have  agreed 
to  call  it  so.'  What  would  the  artist  reply? 
Would  he  not  say :  *  My  friend,  your  testimony 
is  absolutely  valueless.  It  adds  nothing  to  the 
weight  of  Edinburgh's  prestige.  To  have  any 
value,  your  testimony  must  be  founded  on  sight. 
It  must  be  independent  of  any  other  witness. 
You  must  be  convinced  by  your  own  vision — 
convinced  with  equal  strength  though  all  other 
witnesses  were  contrary.  You  must  be  able  to 
feel  that  the  beauty  of  Edinburgh  to  you  needs, 
no  vindication,  that  you  would  deem  it  as  fair 
if  all  the  world  contemned  it,  that  it  shines  to 
you  by  its  own  light  and  holds  the  evidence  of 
its  own  glory. ' 


124        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

The  words  of  our  Lord  to  Nicodemus  have 
often  been  deemed  mystical.  I  see  in  them 
neither  mysticism  nor  mystery.  Christianity  is 
no  exception  when  it  says,  *  He  who  would  know 
me  must  be  born  into  my  spirit.'  There  is 
not  a  study  in  the  world  which  would  not  say 
that.  Have  you  ever  asked  yourself  what  is  the 
first  requirement  for  any  study.?  A  knowledge 
of  facts.?  That  is  very  essential,  but  it  is  not 
the  earliest  thing.  A  power  of  acute  reason- 
ing.? That  is  also  very  essential,  but  it  comes 
into  use  still  later  than  the  facts.  There  is 
something  behind  these,  earlier  than  these,  and 
that  is  the  spirit  of  the  study  itself.  Before  a 
man  can  even  begin  to  inquire,  he  must  ask 
himself,  Am  I  in  sympathy  with  the  subject.? 
— that  question  must  precede  all  investigation 
of  facts  and  all  lines  of  reasoning.  It  matters 
not  what  the  kingdom  be,  our  first  step  must 
be  made  here.  Take  the  kingdom  of  art.  A 
man  might  buy  all  the  pictures  in  a  gallery, 
might  commit  to  memory  their  various  sub- 
jects, might  learn  their  date  and  authorship, 
might  study  the  lives  of  their  different  painters. 


NICODEMUS  THE  INSTRUCTED       125 

might  even  combine  the  scattered  threads  of 
his  information  into  a  connected  narrative  em- 
bodying the  rational  sequence  of  the  artistic 
history;  but  all  this  would  be  only  the  outside. 
One  touch  of  inward  sympathy  would  make  him 
independent  of  all  these  things.  He  could  dis- 
pense with  historical  knowledge.  He  could 
dispense  with  financial  expenditure.  He  could 
dispense  with  efforts  of  memory.  He  could  feed 
upon  a  single  picture — though  he  knew  not  its 
name,  though  he  knew  not  its  author,  though 
he  could  not  identify  any  one  of  its  figures.  A 
very  small  amount  of  influence  from  without  is 
sufficient  to  stimulate  the  spirit. 

Now,  the  error  of  Nicodemus  was  that  he 
sought  Christ  for  something  on  the  outside. 
He  came  to  Him  for  what  He  wore — that  was 
the  sting  of  the  position.  He  was  attracted  to 
Christ  by  His  miracles.  This  was  to  Christ  quite 
equivalent  to  saying,  '  I  love  you  for  the  dress 
you  wear.'  There  lies  the  reason  for  the  stern- 
ness with  which  He  speaks  to  Nicodemus.  If 
Nicodemus  had  come  and  said,  *  Master,  I  can- 
not believe  in  your  miracles  unless  I  have  seen 


126         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

them,  but  I  am  already  convinced  of  your  Di- 
vine beauty,'  Jesus  would  have  received  him 
very  differently;  for  the  only  power  He  valued 
was  the  power  of  the  spirit,  and  He  felt  that 
the  power  of  His  spirit  was  something  which 
flesh  and  blood  could  not  reveal. 

But  here  again  Nicodemus  has  a  magnificent 
counterpart.  We  have  seen  how  grandly  the 
previous  tendency  was  reversed,  transformed. 
We  have  seen  how  the  man  who  clung  to  the 
fashion  of  his  age  became  the  man  who  could 
stand  to  his  opinion  unbefriended  and  alone. 
We  are  now  to  see  a  greater  transformation  still. 
This  man  who  at  the  beginning  accepted 
Christ's  miracles  and  ignored  His  Divine  beauty 
was  able  in  the  end  to  ignore  His  miracles  and 
accept  His  beauty !  In  the  latest  recorded  scene 
in  which  he  appears  before  us  he  comes  in  a 
deeper  and  darker  night  than  that  in  which 
he  first  sought  the  Lord.  Jesus  is  dead.  All 
the  Messianic  hopes  seem  faded  in  the  dust. 
The  hosannahs  are  hushed,  the  palm-leaves  are 
withered,  the  friends  of  summer  days  have 
made  their  flight  in  the  winter.     It  was  a  time 


NICODEMUS  THE  INSTRUCTED       127 

when,  if  the  first  view  of  Nicodemus  had  been 
right,  God  must  have  deserted  Jesus.  All 
power  had  vanished  from  Him — even  the  power 
to  live.  There  He  lay — shorn  of  His  outward 
beams,  denuded  of  His  visible  glory,  stripped 
of  the  robe  of  earthly  royalty!  And  it  was 
at  this  moment  that  Nicodemus  came.  He 
came  to  do  homage  to  the  dead,  to  embalm  the 
body  of  the  prostrate  Lord.  He  brought  myrrh 
and  aloes  of  a  hundred-pound  weight — far  more 
than  could  possibly  be  used  for  the  purpose. 
It  was  like  the  woman's  alabaster  box — the 
prodigality  of  love.  And,  like  the  pouring  out 
of  that  ointment,  it  was  an  anointing  for  burial. 
He  recognised  Christ's  majesty  in  death — this 
man  who  had  begun  with  the  love  of  the  exter- 
nal !  He  saw  His  glory  in  the  night ;  he  beheld 
His  chariot  in  a  cloud;  he  discerned  His  king- 
dom under  the  trappings  of  the  grave!  It  was 
a  grand  act,  worthy  to  constitute  our  last 
glimpse  of  the  man.  It  was  an  act,  moreover, 
which  lends  to  the  picture  of  Christ's  life  a 
strange  poetic  consistency.  Twice  in  that  pic- 
ture do  we  see  the  myrrh  laid  at  the  unconscious 


128         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

feet  of  Jesus;  and  both  tributes  are  given  by 
inquiring  minds.  The  first  offering  was  laid 
before  the  infant  by  the  Persian  Magi ;  the  sec- 
ond was  made  to  the  dead  Christ  by  the  Jew- 
ish Nicodemus.  To  me  there  is  something  beau- 
tiful in  the  thought  that,  amid  all  the  selfish 
approaches  to  Jesus,  amid  all  the  crowds  that 
sought  Him  only  for  what  He  could  bestow, 
there  were  some  who  recognised  Him  in  the 
days  of  His  weakness,  and  paid  their  tribute  to 
a  sense  of  inward  beauty.  The  myrrh  presented 
in  the  manger  and  the  myrrh  lavished  on  Cal- 
vary are  the  truest  embalming  of  the  greatness 
of  our  Lord. 

TT  is  Thy  death  that  has  embalmed  Thee,  O 
*  Christ.  Many  things  have  glorifiedy\1\i^^\ 
but  death  has  embalmed  Thee.  The  myrrh  and 
the  aloes  have  remained  in  Thy  sepulchre.  No- 
where dost  Thou  live  in  memory  so  bright  as  in 
the  valley  of  the  shadow.  In  a  deeper  sense 
than  Nicodemus,  we  come  to  Thee  *by  night.' 
Not  in  Thy  miracles  art  Thou  embalmed,  but 
where  Thy  miracles  have  ceased.     We  have  seen 


NICODEMUS  THE  INSTRUCTED       129 

Thy  beauty  where  the  world  saw  only  Thy  weak- 
ness; Thou  hast  survived  where  men  thought 
Thee  most  unfit.  We  have  brought  our  crown 
to  Thy  discrowned  brow;  we  have  put  our 
trust  in  Thine  unsceptred  hand.  We  have  kept 
our  spices  for  Thy  grave.  We  have  not  scat- 
tered them  on  Hermon  where  mighty  words 
were  spoken;  we  have  not  spread  them  in  the 
wilderness  where  wondrous  bread  was  broken; 
we  have  not  left  them  on  the  Transfiguration 
Mount  which  gave  Thee  heaven's  token.  We 
have  passed  these  by.  We  have  laid  the  myrrh 
and  aloes  upon  the  altar  of  Thy  sacrifice. 
We  have  brought  our  faith  to  Thy  seeming  fee- 
bleness, our  prayer  to  Thine  apparent  power- 
lessness.  We  have  drawn  courage  from  Thy 
crucifixion,  strength  from  Thy  stripes,  wealth 
from  Thy  wounds,  boldness  from  Thy  blood. 
We  have  seen  Thy  kingdom  in  the  cloud.  Thine 
empire  in  the  embers,  Thy  power  in  the  unbeat- 
ing  pulse.  Thy  glory  in  the  grave-clothes.  Thy 
victory  in  the  hour  of  vanquishment.  Thy  des- 
tiny coming  from  the  dust.  We  pay  our  trib- 
ute to  Thy  cross.     We  lay  our  myrrh  and  aloes 


I30         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

where  the  old  world  laid  its  scorn — upon  Thy 
broken  heart ;  but  one  who  once  belonged  to  that 
world  meets  us  at  the  garden  gate  and  cries, 
*  You  have  done  well. '  It  is  the  voice  of  Nico- 
demus. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THOMAS   THE   CONVINCED 

There  are  two  classes  of  minds  which  habitu- 
ally stand  in  the  post  of  outlook — the  man  of 
the  laurel  and  the  man  of  the  cypress.  The 
first  sees  the  world  as  rose-coloured.  It  is  all 
brightness,  all  beauty,  all  glory — a  scene  of  splen- 
did possibilities  which  is  waiting  to  open  for  him 
its  gates  of  gold.  The  second,  on  the  other  hand, 
approaches  it  with  dismay.  To  him  the  pros- 
pect looks  all  dark.  He  is  a  pessimist  previ- 
ous to  experience.  He  is  sure  he  will  never  suc- 
ceed. He  is  sure  the  gate  will  not  open  when  he 
tries_it.  He  feels  that  he  has  nothing  to  ex- 
pect from  life.  He  hangs  his  harp  upon  a  wil- 
low, and  goes  forth  to  sow  in  tears. 

And  each  of  these  has  a  representative  in  the 
New  Testament.     I  think  the  man  of  the  laurel 

is  the  evangelist  John.     From  the  very  begin- 
131 


132         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

ning  he  is  optimistic.  Even  when  Christ  was 
on  the  road  to  that  martyrdom  of  which  He 
had  warned  His  disciples,  John  is  so  sanguine 
of  success  that  he  appUes  for  a  place  in  the 
coming  kingdom.  And  through  life  this  opti- 
mism does  not  desert  him.  His  very  power  to 
stand  beside  the  cross  was  a  power  of  hope.  It 
was  not  that  he  excelled  his  brother-disciples  in 
the  nerve  to  bear  pain.  It  was  rather  that  to 
him  the  spectacle  conveyed  an  impression  of 
less  pain — that  he  saw  in  it  elements  of  triumph 
as  well  as  trial,  signs  of  strength  along  with 
marks  of  sacrifice. 

But  if  the  man  of  the  laurel  is  John,  the  man 
of  the  cypress  is  assuredly  Thomas.  There  are 
men  whose  melancholy  is  the  result  of  their 
scepticism;  Thomas's  scepticism  is  the  result 
of  his  melancholy.  He  came  to  the  facts  of 
life  with  an  antecedent  prejudice;  he  uniformly 
expected  from  the  banquet  an  inferior  menu. 
It  is  a  great  mistake  to  imagine  that  the  collapse 
came  with  the  Crucifixion.  Strictly  speaking, 
there  was  no  collapse.  If  I  understand  the  pic- 
ture aright,   it  represents  the  figure  of  a  man 


THOMAS  THE  CONVINCED  133 

who  could  never  stand  at  his  full  stature  but 
was  always  bent  towards  the  ground.  It  was 
not  from  timidity.  He  was  a  courageous  man, 
ready  to  do  and  dare  anything  even  when  he  was 
most  downcast.  It  was  not  from  a  mean  na- 
ture. He  was  a  man  of  the  noblest  spirit — capa- 
ble of  the  most  heroic  deeds  of  sacrifice.  That 
which  gave  him  a  crouching  attitude  was  simply 
a  constitutional  want  of  hope — a  natural  in- 
ability to  take  the  bright  view.  It  was  this 
which  made  him  a  sceptic.  He  was  indisposed 
to  give  anything  a  trial.  When  the  disciples 
assembled  at  their  first  spiritual  sdance  in  the 
hope  of  getting  a  vision  of  their  risen  Lord,  he 
refused  to  attend;^  when  told  that  a  vision 
had  been  given,  he  refused  to  believe  it.  It 
was  too  good  news  to  be  true.  He  would  have 
believed  the  story  of  an  earthquake  or  a  pesti- 
lence or  a  shipwreck;  but  he  could  not  credit 
the  earth  with  the  power  to  witness  a  scene  of 
glory. 

^  I  think  the  same  religious  hopelessness  would  keep 
him  from  attending  the  meeting  for  silent  individual 
prayer  in  Gethsemane  ;  I  do  not  believe  he  was  one  of 
those  who  fled  that  night. 


134         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

Now,  the  question  which  arises  is  this,  Why- 
is  Thomas  so  leniently  treated  ?  He  demands  as 
an  evidence  of  the  risen  Christ  that  very  kind 
of  proof  which  the  Pharisees  had  demanded  as 
an  evidence  of  the  Divine  Christ — a  physical 
sign.  We  know  how  Christ  treated  the  Phari- 
saic demand,  how  He  had  said,  *  An  evil  and  adul- 
terous generation  seeketh  after  a  sign,  and  there 
shall  no  sign  be  given  unto  it. '  Is  it  thus  that 
our  Lord  meets  Thomas.?  On  the  contrary. 
He  grants  his  request — not  perhaps  without  re- 
proach, but  certainly  without  loss  of  tenderness ; 
He  bids  him  put  forth  his  hand  and  touch  the 
material  sign — the  print  of  the  nails.  There  must 
have  been  something  in  Thomas  which  won 
upon  Christ,  which  made  the  request  in  his 
case  comparatively  harmless.  What  was  it }  It 
is  a  question  well  worthy  of  our  consideration. 
We  are  familiar  with  the  saying  that  circum- 
stances alter  cases;  it  is  equally  true  that  per- 
sons alter  cases.  The  boon  of  a  physical  sign 
denied  to  the  Jewish  nation  is  granted  to  a  Jew- 
ish individual.  There  must  have  been  some- 
thing in  that  individual  which  to  the  eye  of  the 


THOMAS  THE  CONVINCED  135 

Master  changed  the  complexion  of  the  case  and 
rendered  it  possible  to  relax  the  rigidness  of  the 
rule. 

And  a  moment's  reflection  will  convince  us 
that  in  the  picture  of  Thomas  we  have  a  speci- 
men quite  unique  in  the  male  section  of  Christ's 
first  hearers — a  figure  which  must  have  been 
unique  even  to  Jesus  Himself.  For  consider, 
the  natural  melancholy  of  this  man  made  his 
approach  to  Christ  an  unselfish  one.  He  ex- 
pected nothing  from  the  world — nothing  from 
a  world  even  under  the  auspices  of  Christ. 
Yet  he  came  to  Christ — spite  of  this  absence 
of  physical  expectation.  Whatever  drew  him 
to  the  Master,  it  could  have  been  nothing  ex- 
ternal. Here  was  something  fresh  and  new.  All 
around  Him  Christ  saw  men  who  came  on  the 
chance  of  a  physical  glory.  The  sign  they 
asked  was  not  so  much  a  sign  of  Christ  as  a 
sign  of  their  own  felicity.  Even  the  circle  of 
the  apostolic  band  was  pervaded  by  the  hope 
of  a  physical  glory.  With  some  it  took  the 
form  of  Messianic  conquest;  with  others,  like 
Simon  Peter,  it  assumed  the  aspect  of  an  earthly 


136        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

Paradise  far  from  the  din  of  men.  But  what- 
ever form  it  took,  it  had  always  the  same  es- 
sence— outward  reward.  The  Christ  was  meas- 
ured by  His  power  to  change  the  present  order 
of  physical  things — to  place  two  ignorant  fisher- 
men at  the  right  hand  of  heaven,  to  bid  the 
stones  be  turned  into  bread,  to  change  earth's 
water  into  plenteous  wine,  and  expand  the  few 
loaves  into  food  for  the  million. 

But  here  is  a  man  who  approaches  Jesus  in 
a  totally  different  attitude.  He  was  a  man  of 
the  cypress — a  man  to  whom  the  world  did  not 
present  possibilities.  I  do  not  say  it  did  not 
present  attractions;  but  where  attractions  are 
believed  to  be  beyond  our  reach  they  have  no 
motive  power.  It  is  a  proverbial  saying  that  an 
infant  cries  for  the  moon.  But  the  infant  cries 
for  the  moon  because  it  believes  that  luminary  to 
be  within  its  reach;  if  it  had  a  contrary  belief, 
we  are  absolutely  safe  in  stating  that  it  would 
not  cry.  All  aspiration  is  born  of  hope.  If  I 
believe  an  object  to  be  beyond  the  stretch  of 
my  arm,  I  do  not  stretch  my  arm  towards  it. 
It  is  equally  true  with  the  things  of  the  heart 


THOMAS  THE  CONVINCED  137 

I  do  not  make  an  effort  to  attain  that  which  I 
know  to  be  entirely  above  me;  desire,  in  such 
cases,  is  paralysed  on  the  threshold.  And 
such  I  conceive  to  be  the  case  of  Thomas.  He 
looked  at  the  world  from  under  his  cypress-tree, 
and  he  pronounced  it  an  impossible  world — 
a  world  whose  gates  of  promotion  and  whose 
doors  of  promise  were  not  for  him.  He  had  too 
keen  a  sense  of  life's  difficulties  to  be  impelled 
by  any  worldly  hope  in  Christ,  and  therefore 
he  never  could  have  joined  Christ  for  any  such 
motive.  Yet  he  did  join  Him.  He  threw  in 
his  lot  with  Jesus  and  accompanied  His  train. 
Why.?  So  must  have  asked  the  Son  of  Man 
Himself;  and  the  answer  His  mind  gave  must 
have  been  refreshing  in  the  extreme.  Amid 
the  many  who  came  to  Him  for  His  surround- 
ings, here  was  one  who  came  to  Him  for  Him- 
self. Christ  beheld  in  Thomas  a  devotion  to 
His  person.  Had  he  recognised  in  the  Mas- 
ter some  of  his  own  cypress  leaves — something 
which  prevented  Him  from  having  fulness  of 
joy }  I  cannot  tell ;  but  I  know  that  the  man  of 
depression  drew  close  to  the  Man  of  Sorrows, 


138         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

and  I  feel  that  the  bond  between  them  was 
stronger  than  any  material  chain. 

In  this  portrait  of  Thomas  I  think  there  are 
revealed  two  things  of  great  significance.  We 
see  a  Christian  love  in  the  absence  of  a  Chris- 
tian creed;  and  we  see  what  is  more  remark- 
able still — a  Christian  faith  in  the  absence  of 
a  Christian  creed.  Let  us  look  at  each  of 
these  separately. 

And  first.  Let  us  take  one  central  incident 
in  the  portraiture  of  Thomas.  Perhaps  if  the 
question  were  asked,  What  is  the  most  central 
incident  in  the  portraiture  of  Thomas.?  the 
majority  would  answer,  'The  touching  of  the 
nail-prints.'  That  is  not  my  opinion.  I  think 
the  circumstance  which  most  broadly  marks  the 
character  of  Thomas  is  his  attitude  towards 
Jesus  on  hearing  of  the  death  of  Lazarus.  Let 
us  review  the  facts  for  a  moment. 

There  has  been  a  commotion  in  the  streets 
of  Jerusalem.  The  transition  of  Jesus  from  the 
work  of  a  reformer  to  the  work  of  a  theologian 
has  produced  also  a  transition  in  the  feelings 
of  the  multitude.     They  pass  at  a  bound  from 


THOMAS  THE  CONVINCED  139 

applause  to  reprobation.  Goaded  by  the  sugges- 
tion of  heresy  in  His  teaching,  they  assail  Him 
with  stones.  The  majesty  of  Christ's  presence 
saves  Him — paralyses  the  directness  of  their 
aim.  Evading  the  fury  of  the  populace,  He 
retires  into  a  secluded  place,  and  for  some  time 
is  visible  only  to  His  disciples.  At  last,  to  this 
desert  spot  come  tidings  of  the  death  of  Laza- 
rus. Then  Jesus  resolves  to  return.  The  dis- 
ciples are  startled — on  His  account  and  their 
own.  They  are  very  unwilling  to  come  into  the 
vicinity  of  a  place  which  had  been  so  fraught 
with  fear,  so  full  of  danger.  Jesus,  for  His 
part,  is  determined.  He  says,  *I  go.'  He 
does  not  ask  any  one  to  accompany  Him;  He 
simply  expresses  His  personal  resolve.  Then 
through  the  silence  one  man  speaks  out  for 
the  company — *  Let  us  also  go,  that  we  may 
die  with  Him ! '     It  is  the  voice  of  Thomas. 

Now,  I  say  that  this  utterance  of  Thomas 
reveals  at  one  and  the  same  moment  the  deep- 
est scepticism  and  the  highest  love.  The  scep- 
ticism does  not  lie  in  his  expectation  of  Christ's 
death.     That  was  the  very  thing  which  Christ 


I40         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

wished  His  disciples  to  expect,  nay,  to  build 
their  hopes  upon.  But  the  scepticism  of 
Thomas  comes  out  in  the  belief  that  the  death 
of  Jesus  would  be  the  death  of  His  kingdom. 
'Let  us  go,  that  we  may  die  with  Him.'  The 
man  who  uttered  these  words  had,  at  the  time 
when  he  uttered  them,  no  hope  of  Christ's  res- 
urrection. No  man  would  propose  to  die  with 
another  if  he  expected  to  see  him  again  in  a 
few  hours.  Thomas,  at  that  moment,  had  given 
up  all  intellectual  belief.  He  saw  no  chance 
for  Jesus.  He  did  not  believe  in  His  physical 
power.  He  had  made  up  his  mind  that  the 
forces  of  the  outer  world  would  be  too  strong 
for  Him,  would  crush  Him.  The  penitent  said 
to  the  dying  Lord,  *  Remember  me  when  Thou 
comest  in  Thy  kingdom.'  Thomas  could  not 
say  that ;  he  saw  no  kingdom  beyond  the  death ; 
he  could  only  cry,  *  Let  me  die  with  Him ! ' 

But  what  a  cry  was  that!  It  was  the  voice 
of  a  boundless  love.  The  natural  sequence  to 
the  view  held  by  Thomas  would  have  been, 
*  The  game  is  lost ;  save  yourselves  who  can ! ' 
The  average  man  would  have  said,  *  Our  Master 


THOMAS  THE  CONVINCED  141 

is  bent  on  a  course  which  must  inevitably  end 
in  the  ruin  of  His  cause;  it  now  becomes  im- 
perative that  we  should  provide  for  ourselves.' 
Thomas  says,  on  the  contrary,  *  It  now  becomes 
imperative  that  I  should  sJiare  His  ruin — die 
with  Him.'  It  is  what  I  would  call  the  logic 
of  love — a  kind  of  reasoning  which  on  any  other 
ground  would  be  deemed  absurd.  It  never  oc- 
curred to  Thomas  that  there  could  be  a  possibiL 
ity  of  separation  between  his  interests  and  the  in- 
terests of  his  Master.  In  his  mind  they  were  one. 
He  would  have  been  glad  to  have  shared  in  His 
good  fortune  had  good  fortune  been  His  lot; 
but  since  the  cypress  and  not  the  laurel  had 
been  His,  the  only  remaining  consolation  was 
the  possibility  of  being  overtaken  by  the  same 
storm  and  crushed  in  the  same  ruin.  I  know 
not  in  all  the  opening  life  of  the  apostolic  band 
where  to  look  for  such  a  form  of  love.  To  find 
it  in  the  primitive  Gospel  I  must  go  out  of 
that  band.  To  meet  with  a  perfect  analogy  I 
must  go  to  those  women  who  followed  Jesus 
from  the  obscurity  of  Galilee  to  the  obsequies 
of  the  grave.     I  think  they  were  animated  by 


T42         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

the  love  that  dwelt  within  the  heart  of  Thomas 
— the  love  which  could  exist  even  amid  the  be- 
lief that  Christ  had  no  outward  sun.  I  think 
these  women  believed  that  Christ  had  no  out- 
ward sun.  They  came  to  the  sepulchre;  but  it 
was  not  because  they  looked  for  His  resurrec- 
tion ;  it  was  to  anoint  His  body  with  the  spices. 
Their  whole  solicitude  was  for  the  preservation 
of  the  body ;  *  They  have  taken  away  my  Lord, ' 
cries  one  of  them,  'and  I  know  not  where 
they  have  laid  Him ! '  They  never  would  have 
brought  the  spices  if  they  had  expected  a  resur- 
rection. Why  anoint  a  body  for  the  grave  which 
the  grave  in  a  few  hours  was  to  yield  up  to  life 
and  liberty!  The  bringing  of  the  spices  was 
the  highest  proof  of  their  shattered  creed,  and 
it  was  at  the  same  moment  the  strongest  evi- 
dence of  their  deathless  love.  They  had  taken 
up  at  the  last  the  uncrowned  Christ  whom 
they  had  accepted  at  the  beginning,  and  they 
had  lavished  upon  Him  all  the  treasure  of  their 
hearts.  To  these  feminine  souls  Thomas  was 
more  allied  than  to  any  of  the  first  apostles  in 
their  first  days.     He  was  drawn  to  the  Master 


THOMAS  THE  CONVINCED  143 

by  something  which  the  world  could  neither 
give  nor  take  away;  he  had  not  expected  the 
crown  and  he  was  not  repelled  by  the  cross. 

But  this  same  fact  has  a  second  aspect.  It 
not  only  reveals  a  Christian  love  existing  in 
the  absence  of  a  creed,  but  a  Christian  faith 
existing  in  the  absence  of  a  creed.  For,  let  us 
understand  distinctly  what  that  was  for  which 
Thomas  was  prepared  to  die.  It  was  an  ideal. 
Paul  says  there  is  a  faith  which  worketh  by 
love.  The  love  of  Thomas  reveals  such  a  faith. 
What  he  proposed  to  die  for  was  really  a  be- 
lief— the  belief  that  death  with  Jesus  was  better 
than  life  without  Him.  I  would  call  this  a 
dogma  of  love  as  distinguished  from  a  dogma 
of  knowledge.  It  was  an  article  of  faith  pre- 
scribed by  the  heart  and  enshrined  in  the  book 
of  the  affections.  Thousands  of  martyrs  have 
died  for  their  faith  in  Jesus;  Thomas  was  will- 
ing to  do  so  too.  What  is  the  difference  be- 
tween the  faith  of  Thomas  and  the  faith  of  the 
martyrs  ?  It  is  this :  The  martyrs  saw  the  sac- 
rifice from  under  the  laurel;  Thomas  contem- 
plated it  from  beneath  the  cypress.     The  mar- 


144         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

tyrs  had  their  eye  upon  the  rainbow;  Thomas 
looked  upon  the  cloud.  The  martyrs  were  con- 
vinced, not  only  of  Christ's  spiritual  beauty, 
but  of  His  physical  power;  Thomas  was  satis- 
fied only  of  the  former.  The  martyrs  beheld 
an  eternity  beyond;  Thomas  did  not.  Hence 
the  martrys  really  said,  *  Let  us  die  for  Him  ' ; 
Thomas  exclaimed,  *  Let  us  die  with  Him.  * 
It  is  the  difference  between  optimism  and  pessi- 
mism ;  but  it  is  not  a  difference  in  the  intensity 
of  faith.  When  I  say,  '  I  believe  in  that  man, ' 
I  express  my  confidence  in, the  man  himself — 
confidence  in  his  honour,  in  his  uprightness,  in 
his  integrity  of  character.  If  I  should  be  obliged 
to  entertain  dark  views  about  his  worldly  pros- 
pects, this  will  sadden  me,  but  it  will  in  no  wise 
shake  my  faith.  My  faith  was  not  in  his  worldly 
prospects,  but  in  himself — in  my  ideal  of  the 
man;  and  that  ideal  will  remain  unbroken,  un- 
dimmed,  unaltered,  by  any  contingency  that  can 
befall  his  fortunes. 

But  behind  this  cry  of  Thomas  there  is  some- 
thing more — something  which  gives  his  faith 
an  aspect  higher  than  he  himself  knew.     For, 


THOMAS  THE  CONVINCED  145 

what  was  this  determination  to  die  with  Jesus? 
It  was  really  an  unconscious  act  of  homage  to 
the  majesty  of  a  human  soul.  He  was  declaring, 
not  by  word  but  by  deed,  that  mind  is  greater 
than  matter,  nay,  that  a  single  mind  can  to  him 
outweigh  all  the  material  glories  of  the  universe 
— its  suns  and  its  systems,  its  silver  and  its  gold. 
The  man  whose  deed  could  say  that,  was  very 
near  the  hope  of  immortality.  He  might  call 
himself  an  agnostic,  an  unbeliever,  a  man  with- 
out a  creed;  but  the  mental  act  of  sacrifice  to 
the  majesty  of  mind  proclaimed  him  not  far 
from  the  vision  of  eternal  life.  I  do  not  wonder 
that  Jesus  offered  him  an  aid  to  the  belief  in 
resurrection.  It  was  worth  while  to  help  such 
a  soul.  He  was  nearer  to  the  belief  in  res- 
urrection than  many  who  professed  it.  He 
had  not  seen  the  city  of  gold ;  but  he  had  seen 
the  transcendent  beauty  of  the  human  soul. 
To  have  the  vision  of  such  a  beauty  is  to  be 
more  than  half-way  to  the  happy  land  of  Beulah. 
There  are  a  greater  number  in  the  world  like 
Thomas  than  the  world  dreams  of.     There  are 

those  whom  we  call  secularists,   nay,   who  call 
10 


146         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

themselves  so.  They  say,  *  Never  mind  look- 
ing beyond  the  skies;  let  us  attend  to  the 
wants  of  our  brother-man;  let  us  surrender  our 
lives  to  the  life  of  humanity!'  And  many  of 
these  labour  in  that  cause  with  great  success. 
But  why?  It  is  because,  like  Thomas,  they 
think  man  more  worth  serving  than  matter. 
There  is  more  in  their  heart  than  in  their  cate- 
chism. Their  catechism  says,  *  Do  not  look 
beyond  the  earth ' ;  but  their  eye  has  in  an  un- 
conscious moment  already  looked  beyond  and 
seen  that  humanity  is  more  than  common  clay. 
Living  philanthropy  is  latent  faith. 

I  have  been  endeavouring  to  account  for  the 
problem  involved  in  that  wonderful  episode  of 
the  Picture  where  Thomas  is  represented  as  ask- 
ing a  special  sign  that  Christ  has  risen — *  Ex- 
cept I  shall  see  in  His  hands  the  print  of  the 
nails,  and  thrust  my  hand  into  His  side,  I  will 
not  believe.'  The  problem  lies  in  the  fact  that 
the  request  is  granted — that  Christ  in  the  case  of 
Thomas  departs  from  His  usual  practice  of  dis- 
couraging speculative  curiosity.  But  where  we 
err  is  in  attributing  that  spirit  to  Thomas.     I 


THOMAS  THE  CONVINCED  147 

have  heard  Thomas  described  again  and  again  as 
a  speculative  mind — a  mind  seeking  to  dive  into 
the  secrets  of  the  future.  A  more  unfair  view 
of  his  position  is  not  to  be  conceived.  Per- 
haps he  was  the  least  speculative  of  all  the  apos- 
tles, and  for  the  very  reason  that  he  was  the 
least  hopeful.  Speculation  is  inspired  by  hope. 
It  was  hope  that  made  Peter  see  his  vision  at 
Joppa.  It  was  hope  that  gave  John  his  vision 
at  Patmos.  It  was  hope  that  opened  to  Paul 
a  glimpse  of  the  highest  heaven.  But  Thomas 
was  not  a  man  of  hope;  he  was  a  man  of  de- 
spair. Curiosity  was  no  part  of  his  nature. 
His  cry  for  a  sign  of  the  risen  Christ  was  not 
really  a  cry  for  the  resurrection;  the  present 
life  had  not  been  so  bright  to  him  as  to  make 
him  interested  in  another.  But  what  he  was 
interested  in  was  the  survival  of  his  Lord  Him- 
self. What  cried  out  for  satisfaction  was  not 
his  curiosity  but  his  love.  The  sign  he  asked 
was  a  sign  that  his  Master  was  alive — a  sign  that 
he  could  meet  Him  again,  speak  to  Him  again, 
commune  with  Him  again.  Thomas  had  no 
wish  to  lift  the  curtain  of  eternity.     He  was 


148         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

content  to  remain  in  ignorance  of  what  *  the 
angels  desire  to  look  into.''  All  he  wanted  was 
to  be  convinced  that  his  Lord  was  in  the  land 
of  the  living  by  the  touch  of  a  vanished  hand 
and  the  sound  of  a  voice  that  had  been  still. 

And  Christ  granted  him  that  conviction. 
*  Reach  hither  thy  finger, '  He  says,  '  and  be- 
hold My  hands,  and  thrust  thy  hand  into  My 
side,  and  be  not  faithless  but  believing ' ;  and 
with  a  great  cry  love  recognises  its  object  and 
clasps  its  restored  treasure.  But  even  in  his 
moment  of  transport  Thomas  receives  an  inti- 
mation that  the  sign  which  he  asked  was  not  the 
best  thing — *  Because  thou  hast  seen,  thou  hast 
believed ;  blessed  are  they  that  have  not  seen  and 
yet  have  believed.  *  What  does  Christ  mean  by 
these  words  .!*  It  is  worth  while  asking,  for 
they  express  the  reason  of  His  habitual  unwill- 
ingness to  reveal  Himself  by  material  signs. 
Are  we  to  understand  that  it  is  a  more  blessed 
thing  to  believe  on  slender  evidence  than  on 
grounds  of  assured  conviction }  This  is,  I  think, 
the  common  interpretation.  The  value  of  faith 
is  supposed  to  lie  in  its  want  of  credentials. 


THOMAS  THE  CONVINCED  149 

One  of  the  Church  fathers  says,  *  I  believe, 
because  it  is  impossible. '  It  reminds  one  of  the 
familiar  story  of  a  little  girl  in  a  Sunday-school 
who,  when  asked  to  define  *  faith,'  wrote  this 
answer — '  It  is  the  power  to  believe  something 
which  you  know  to  be  false.'  But  our  Lord's 
view  here  is  just  the  opposite  of  this.  When 
He  says,  *  Blessed  are  they  that  have  not  seen 
and  yet  have  believed,'  He  means  that  they  are 
blessed  because  their  faith  rests  on  higher  evi- 
dence— the  evidence  not  of  the  sense  but  of  the 
soul.  The  writer  of  the  Acts  says  that  Christ 
burst  the  bands  of  death  because  it  was  not  pos- 
sible death  should  hold  Him.  This  is  what  I  call 
unseen  evidence — his  Christ  was  not  immortal 
because  He  rose  from  the  grave;  He  rose  from 
the  grave  because  He  was  immortal.  If  the 
rising  had  taken  place  unknown  to  any  human 
soul,  it  would  not  have  altered  this  man's  opin- 
ion. Christ  and  death  were  to  him  two  irrecon- 
cilable quantities;  he  could  not  think  of  them 
together.  His  formula  would  be,  not  *  the  Res- 
urrection proves  Christ, '  but  *  Christ  proves  the 
Resurrection.'     That   is   a   faith   which   Christ 


ISO        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

pronounces,  which  we  must  pronounce,  blessed. 
To  feel  that  the  life  of  Jesus  is  its  own  witness, 
that  the  purity  of  His  heart  is  bound  to  see 
the  King  in  His  beauty,  that  the  self-surrender 
of  His  spirit  ensures  Him  the  kingdom  of  heaven, 
that  His  mourning  for  sin  demands  in  the  here- 
after a  compensating  comfort,  that  His  meek- 
ness merits  a  future  inheritance,  that  His  hunger 
and  thirst  after  man's  righteousness  has  a  claim 
to  be  filled  *  in  the  sweet  by  and  by ' — this  is 
a  faith  which  rests  upon  a  rock  impregnable, 
and  compared  to  whose  blessedness  the  sight  of 
material  wonders  is  poor  indeed. 

LORD,  there  are  times  in  which  my  experi- 
ence is  the  experience  of  Thomas.  There 
are  days  when  I  hear  not  the  bells  of  Easter 
Morn.  I  tread  the  road  to  Emmaus,  and  I 
meet  not  the  risen  Christ.  I  call  to  the  five 
hundred  brethren,  and  they  answer  not.  I 
stand  on  the  mountain  of  Galilee,  and  there 
comes  no  voice  amid  the  breezes.  I  sail  on  Gen- 
nesaret's  lake,  and  I  see  no  vision.  I  fre- 
quent the  upper  room,  and  get  no  hint  of  His 


THOMAS  THE  CONVINCED  151 

presence.  My  faith  cannot  walk  by  sight  in 
hours  like  these.  What  shall  I  do  at  such 
times,  O  Lord!  Hast  Thou  a  remedy  for  the 
loss  of  light.?  Yes,  my  Father.  Thou  hast  a 
gate  where  faith  can  enter  without  seeing  where 
it  goes;  its  name  is  Love.  Lead  me  by  that 
gate  when  my  eye  is  dim!  When  I  cannot 
follow  Him  to  Olivet,  let  me  worship  Him  on 
Calvary!  When  betimes  I  lose  sight  of  His 
risen  form,  do  not  shut  me  out  from  the  bearing 
of  His  name !  In  the  days  when  immortal  hope 
is  dim,  make  room  in  my  heart  for  immortal 
memory !  If  I  cannot  soar  with  Him  into  heav- 
en, let  me  at  least  go  back  to  finish  His  work  on 
earth!  Let  me  gather  the  fragments  of  the 
cross  which  remain  on  the  Dolorous  Way !  Let 
me  distribute  of  the  twelve  baskets  which  were 
not  served  in  the  wilderness!  Let  me  take 
up  His  burden  at  the  spot  where  He  was  too 
faint  to  carry  it!  Let  me  mourn  with  the 
Marthas  whose  Lazarus  I  cannot  raise !  Let  me 
pray  with  the  paralytics  whose  weakness  I  can- 
not cure!  Let  me  sing  to  the  sightless  whose 
eyes  I  cannot  open !     Let  me  lend  to  the  lepers 


152         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

the  touch  of  a  brother's  hand !  Let  me  find  for 
the  fallen  a  chance  to  renew  their  days!  Then 
shall  my  evidence  come  back — brighter,  strong- 
er. Then  shall  my  Easter  Morn  shine  again 
through  the  clouds  of  night.  Then  shall  I 
know  the  meaning  of  these  words :  '  Blessed 
are  they  that  have  not  seen,  and  yet  have  be- 
lieved. ' 


CHAPTER  VIII 

PHILIP   THE   DISILLUSIONED 

A  COLOURLESS  face  may  have  very  strong  feat- 
ures. There  are  faces  in  the  New  Testament 
Gallery  whose  colourlessness  repels  us.  We 
wonder  how  they  have  found  their  way  into 
such  an  august  company.  To  drop  the  meta- 
phor, their  lives  seem  devoid  of  incident.  Their 
names  occur  but  once  or  twice  on  the  Sacred 
Page,  and  in  a  connection  apparently  so  trivial 
as  to  leave  nothing  worth  transmitting.  But 
as  we  look  longer  and  closer,  we  change  our 
mind.  We  feel  as  if  suddenly  a  microscope 
had  been  put  into  our  hand.  The  seeming 
trifle  assumes  magnitude,  the  passing  reference 
becomes  big  with  suggestion,  the  commonplace 
statement  is  found  to  be  full  of  significance; 
and   the   man   who    at    first   appeared   a   mere 

cipher  takes  his  place  among  the  leading  men  of 
153 


154         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

the  Gallery  and  the  representative  men  of  the 
world. 

One  of  the  best  instances  of  this  is,  I  think, 
to  be  found  in  Philip  of  Bethsaida.  The  com- 
mon impression  is  that  we  know  nothing  about 
him.  For  a  long  time  I  studied  his  counte- 
nance in  vain.  It  seemed  expressionless,  char- 
acterless. No  ray  flashed  from  the  eye  to 
awaken  human  interest.  The  man  appeared  a 
lay  figure  placed  in  the  group  merely  to  fill  up 
a  gap.  Was  there  any  personality  about  him 
— anything  worth  converting,  worth  transmit- 
ting, worth  transforming.?  At  first  one  was 
disposed  to  answer,  No.  Yet  I  felt  that  my 
impression  must  be  wrong.  This  man  was 
sought  out  by  Jesus  Himself.  He  was  the  first 
who  ever  heard  the  Christian  command,  *  Fol- 
low me ! '  Jesus  sought  those  who  were  sick 
— physically,  morally,  or  mentally.  His  seek- 
ing of  Philip  implied  that  there  was  something 
to  remove.  I  felt  that  this  *  something '  must 
be  indicated,  and  that  if  I  searched  long  enough 
I  ought  to  find  it.  I  did  search,  long  and 
patiently,    and   I   think  I  have  found  it — have 


PHILIP  THE  DISILLUSIONED         155 

discovered  that  element  in  Philip  which  ren- 
dered him  a  man  requiring  the  Master's  care 
and  representing  through  all  time  one  section 
of  mankind. 

The  question  then  is,  What  is,  in  Philip's 
case,  the  stone  which  had  to  be  rolled  from  the 
door  of  the  sepulchre,  in  other  words,  what  was 
the  original  imperfection  of  his  nature?  We 
have  seen  the  moral  impediments  of  others — 
how  the  Baptist  needed  expansion,  John  self- 
forgetfulness,  Peter  courage,  Nathanael  ro- 
bustness, Nicodemus  instruction,  Thomas  hope. 
What  did  Philip  need?  Can  we  put  our  hand 
upon  his  barrier?  Can  we  tell  the  nature  of 
that  moral  struggle  which  raises  his  life  from 
insignificance  to  interest,  and  gives  him  a  per- 
manent place  among  the  great  cloud  of  wit- 
nesses ? 

I  think  we  can.  It  seems  to  me  that  the 
moral  impediment  of  Philip  was  an  illusion  about 
the  nature  of  the  religious  life.  He  thought 
religion  was  something  above  the  common  plain. 
It  was  too  serious  a  matter  to  be  concerned  in 
the  ordinary  duties  of  the  world,  too  solemn  a 


156         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

thing  to  be  brought  down  to  streets  and  *  open- 
ings of  the  gates.*  By  all  means  the  duties 
of  the  hour  should  be  attended  to,  but  they 
ought  to  have  their  own  agencies.  Religion 
should  be  made  to  dwell  in  a  higher  and  purer 
atmosphere.  It  should  be  kept  for  ecstatic  mo- 
ments in  which  the  world  can  be  forgotten  and 
time  can  be  no  more — moments  in  which  the 
soul  is  carried  right  into  the  presence  of  its 
God,  and  hears  things  which  cannot  be  spoken 
amid  the  duties  of  the  earthly  day.  At  such 
times  the  world  must  drop  from  a  man  like 
Elijah's  garment,  and  all  his  mundane  responsi- 
bilities must  be  overshadowed  by  another  and 
a  higher  life. 

Why  do  I  think  that  this  was  the  original 
view  of  Philip.'*  From  two  episodes  in  his 
history,  both  recorded  in  the  Fourth  Gospel. 
Nothing  can  exceed  the  apparent  difference  be- 
tween these  two  episodes.  The  one  is  at  the 
breaking  of  bread  in  the  wilderness;  the  other 
occurs  at  that  solemn  hour  when  Christ  in  His 
farewell  sermon  was  raising  the  thoughts  of 
His  disciples  to  the  sources  of  spiritual  peace. 


PHILIP  THE  DISILLUSIONED         157 

The  one  is  in  the  sphere  of  the  secular;  the 
other  is  in  the  region  which  men  call  sacred. 
The  one  is  concerned  with  the  wants  of  the 
body;  the  other  is  occupied  with  the  needs  of 
the  soul.  The  one  is  a  scene  of  philanthropy; 
the  other  is  a  scene  of  piety.  In  both  of  these 
opposite  episodes  Philip  is  a  prominent  figure. 
And  yet  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that 
in  each  of  them  he  has  one  and  the  same 
attitude.  In  each  of  these  varied  circum- 
stances we  find  the  man  subject  to  the  same 
illusion  —  the  belief  that  religion  is  something 
too  high  and  holy  to  be  identified  with  the 
good  works  of  common  day.  I  think  this  will 
become  evident  if  we  consider  the  episodes 
separately. 

I  begin  with  the  earlier.  Jesus  has  crossed 
the  Sea  of  Tiberias  and  has  reached  its  eastern 
shore.  Great  crowds  are  coming  in  the  same 
direction — some  from  the  scattered  ranks  of  the 
Baptist,  some  consisting  of  the  pilgrims  to  the 
Passover  at  Jerusalem.  Both  are  naturally 
drawn  to  Jesus — the  disciples  of  the  Baptist 
by  a  kindred  association,  the  Passover  pilgrims 


158         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

by  a  spirit  of  devotion.  We  should  have  thought 
Jesus  would  have  grasped  the  moment  as  one 
eminently  adapted  to  the  spread  of  His  doc- 
trines. Strange  to  say,  His  whole  interest  is 
bent  upon  something  else.  He  thinks  entirely 
of  the  physical  wellbeing  of  that  crowd.  They 
must  already  be  hungry  and  faint  with  their 
journey.  If  they  are  to  interrupt  that  journey 
to  listen  to  Him,  they  will  be  more  faint  and 
hungry  still.  Accordingly,  Christ's  primal  care 
is  for  their  bodies,  their  food,  their  nourish- 
ment. He  intends  that  before  all  things  they 
shall  receive  provision  for  their  temporal  wants. 
But  He  is  not  content  to  achieve  that;  He 
wishes  His  disciples  to  go  along  with  Him,  to 
sympathise  with  Him.  And  so,  He  starts  a 
problem  of  political  economy — How  shall  we 
procure  food  for  this  multitude;  is  there  any 
neighbouring  store  from  which  we  can  buy."*  It 
is  Philip  that  He  addresses — probably  because 
He  feels  that  Philip  is  the  most  likely  to  be 
surprised  at  such  a  human  interest  on  His 
part.  Philip's  answer  is  certainly  not  sympa- 
thetic— *  It  is  impossible ;    even  if  you  could  get 


PHILIP  THE  DISILLUSIONED         159 

two  hundred  pennyworth  of  loaves  it  would  not 
suffice  to  give  a  small  amount  to  each;  the 
scheme  must  be  abandoned. ' 

For  this  answer  Philip  has  reaped  much  ob- 
loquy. The  obloquy  is  just;  but  I  think  it  is 
bestowed  on  wrong  grounds.  Philip  is  blamed 
for  losing  faith  in  the  Messianic  power  of  Jesus 
— a  power  in  which  originally  he  strongly  be- 
lieved. But  I  do  not  think  this  was  really  his 
position.  This  man  was  no  sceptic  about  the 
claims  of  Christ.  He  had  not  lost  one  jot 
of  his  faith  in  the  Messianic  mission  of  Jesus. 
Where  he  erred  was  in  denying  to  that  Mes- 
sianic mission  a  right  to  be  interested  in  what 
he  called  trifles.  It  is  another  form  of  the  ob- 
jection to  the  blessing  pronounced  on  the  lit- 
tle children.  The  love  for  children  was  all 
right,  and  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  chil- 
dren were  desirable;  but  to  single  them  out 
as  a  section  of  Christ's  army,  to  ordain  them 
publicly  to  a  great  Messianic  work  —  this  was 
something  which  seemed  incongruous  with  the 
Christ.  So  did  the  proposal  in  the  wilderness. 
Benevolence  was  good   and  the   wants  of   the 


i6o        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

poor  a  legitimate  subject  of  solicitude;  but  it 
was  deemed  a  subject  for  the  economist,  for 
the  capitalist,  for  the  citizen.  It  was  surely 
no  part  of  the  province  of  Messiah  Himself! 
Was  it  not  a  thing  for  His  agents.  His  sub- 
ordinates! Was  not  the  Messiah's  work  cos- 
mopolitan—  concerned  with  momentous  issues 
and  big  with  solemn  interests!  It  could  never 
be  expected  that  He  should  interrupt  that 
work  to  give  personal  attention  to  a  trifle  of  the 
hour! 

I  feel  sure  that  this,  and  not  want  of  faith, 
was  the  motive  of  Philip's  answer  to  Jesus. 
It  was  his  opinion  that  Jesus  would  not  think 
it  worth  while  to  manifest  His  power  in  a  scene 
so  humble.  And  I  believe  that  in  His  subse- 
quent act  of  political  economy  the  design  of 
Jesus  was  to  counteract  this  impression.  The 
narrative  as  given  by  St.  John  clearly  implies 
that  Jesus  intended  here  to  make  Himself  the 
subject  of  a  special  revelation.  But  what  about 
Himself  did  He  wish  to  reveal  .!*  Was  it  the 
fact  that  He  had  power  to  expand  a  meagre  re- 
past into  a  great  banquet  ?     No ;   it  was  the  fact 


PHILIP  THE  DISILLUSIONED         i6i 

that  He  had  the  will  to  do  so,  that  He  did  not 
deem  it  beneath  His  dignity  to  do  so.  That 
was  what  He  wanted  the  multitude  to  learn; 
that  was  what  He  wanted  Philip  to  learn;  that 
was  what  He  desired  the  world  of  all  times  to 
learn.  We  have  still  our  Philips  among  us — 
men  of  devout  faith  who  yet  by  their  very  devo- 
tion divide  God  too  much  from  man.  To  all 
such  the  old  narrative  carries  the  eternal  moral 
that  the  God  of  the  telescope  must  be  the 
God  of  the  microscope  too,  and  that  the  Power 
which  guides  the  Pleiades  must  be  able  to  direct 
a  sparrow's  wing.  The  later  Isaiah  says  of  God, 
*  He  calleth  the  stars  all  by  name ;  because  He 
is  great  in  power  not  one  faileth.'  The  Philips 
of  the  world  would  have  inverted  the  state- 
ment, would  have  said,  '  Because  He  is  great 
in  power  He  cannot  be  expected  to  take  care 
of  individuals.'  But  the  words  of  the  prophet 
are  held  true  also  by  the  evolutionist,  and  re- 
ligion has  here  found  an  ally  in  science.  The 
claim  of  seeming  trifles  to  be  subjects  of  Uni- 
versal Law  is  one  of  the  greatest  lessons  this 
world  has  ever  received. 


i62        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

I  come  now  to  the  second  episode  which  in- 
dicates the  limitation  in  the  character  of  Philip. 
It  occurs  in  a  totally  different  direction,  but 
it  reveals  the  same  tendency.  The  scene  is 
that  hour  between  the  Passover  and  Geth- 
semane  when  Jesus  delivers  His  parting  mes- 
sage. It  is  distinctively  a  message  to  the  troubled 
heart.  Other  messages  had  been  addressed 
to  different  sides  of  human  nature.  Some  had 
been  spoken  to  the  troubled  body;  they  had 
brought  the  words  of  healing.  Some  had  been 
spoken  to  the  troubled  conscience;  they  had 
breathed  the  words  of  pardon.  Some  had  been 
spoken  to  the  troubled  spirit — troubled  as  to 
where  lay  its  road  to  duty;  they  had  pointed, 
like  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  to  a  life  of  sac- 
rifice. But  this  last  message  of  our  Lord  was 
spoken  to  the  troubled  heart.  It  was  a  season 
of  bereavement.  The  disciples  were  losing 
the  object  of  their  dearest  love.  For  the  first 
time  perhaps  in  their  lives,  their  souls  were  in- 
tent on  the  problem  of  immortality.  Therefore 
it  is  of  immortality  that  Christ  speaks.  He 
tells  them  of  a  life  beyond,  of  a  place  which  He 


PHILIP  THE  DISILLUSIONED         163 

is  about  to  prepare  for  them  in  the  mansions  of 
heaven.  He  tells  them  that  He  is  going  to  no 
foreign  scene,  but  to  the  house  of  His  Father. 
He  tells  them  that  neither  will  they  find  it  for- 
eign— that  they  will  be  where  He  is,  and  so 
have  a  sense  of  home.  But  Christ's  deep  teach- 
ing had  taught  these  men  to  be  critical.  They 
begin  to  question — they  ask  how  they  are  to 
get  there,  and  where  the  region  lies.  Then 
Philip  makes  a  bold  proposal.  He  suggests  a 
method  by  which  all  doubts  will  be  lulled  to 
rest.  Let  Christ  give  them  a  vision  of  the 
Father — of  the  Father  Himself — of  the  primal 
source  of  all  being,  without  any  intermediate 
veil.  You  will  observe  the  thoroughness  of  the 
demand.  He  wants  no  manifestation  from  the 
stage — Jesus  had  given  many  such.  He  wants 
to  get  behind  the  scenes,  to  get  into  the  green- 
room, to  know  the  private  counsels  which 
guide  the  drama  of  life.  He  is  determined 
to  go  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  and  the  root  of 
the  matter  is  to  him  the  beginning  of  crea- 
tion, '  Lord,  show  us  the  Father,  and  it  suffi- 
ceth. ' 


i64         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

Now,  there  is  one  respect  in  which  PhiHp 
was  right.  He  was  right  in  thinking  that  our 
best  evidence  of  immortahty  comes  from  the 
vision  of  the  Father.  I  cannot  understand  how 
any  man  who  has  a  firm  conviction  of  the 
fatherhood  of  God  can  be  sceptical  about  the 
immortahty  of  the  soul.  Remember,  I  speak 
of  the  fatherhood  of  God.  I  do  not  think  the 
mere  belief  in  an  author  of  the  universe  is  suf- 
ficient to  bring  the  conviction  of  human  immor- 
tality. We  have  seen  men  J  ike  Francis  New- 
man accepting  the  existence  of  a  Supreme  Power 
and  yet  refusing  their  assent  to  the  other  doc- 
trine. No  man  would  be  entitled  to  say,  *  Show 
us  that  there  is  an  unknown  power  in  the  uni- 
verse, and  it  sufficeth. '  But  every  man  is 
entitled  to  say,  '  Show  us  the  Father,  and 
it  sufficeth. '  It  was  not  there  that  the  fault  of 
Philip  lay;  Christ's  answer  virtually  admits 
that  he  was  right.  The  highest  evidence  of 
immortality  is  the  vision  of  a  God  who  has  a  re- 
lation to  the  human  soul.  The  very  incomplete- 
ness of  that  soul  then  becomes  an  argument  in 
its  favour.     For,  in  the  light  of  Divine  father- 


PHILIP  THE  DISILLUSIONED         165 

hood,  we  say,  *  God  will  not  leave  His  structure 
unfinished;  He  must  have  determined  to  finish 
it  elsewhere.'  Tennyson  cries,  *Thou  art  just; 
Thou  wilt  not  leave  me  in  the  dust.'  It  may 
seem  a  bold  thing  in  a  matter  of  this  kind  to 
appeal  to  the  justice  rather  than  to  the  mercy 
of  God.  It  is  worse  than  bold  if  God  be  not 
our  Father.  But  if  God  be  our  Father,  His 
mercy  and  His  justice  are  one.  The  yearning 
of  a  human  soul  becomes  itself  a  claim.  The 
aspiration  of  a  human  heart  becomes  itself  a 
right.  The  cry  of  a  human  spirit  becomes  it- 
self a  call  for  the  fulfilment  of  a  promise. 

Philip,  then,  was  justified  in  his  view  that 
the  shortest  road  to  the  hope  of  immortality 
is  a  vision  of  the  Father.  But  he  neutralised 
his  doctrine  by  taking  a  long  road  to  that 
vision.  Where  Philip  erred  was  in  the  belief 
that  a  vision  of  the  Father  was  best  reached 
by  getting  away  from  human  contact  or,  to 
repeat  the  old  metaphor,  by  quitting  the  stage 
for  the  greenroom.  To  him  the  Divine  was 
something  apart  from  the  human;  to  behold  it 
he    must    withdraw    himself.     He    must    retire 


i66         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

from  the  footlights,  from  the  drapery,  from  the 
actors  in  the  scenes  of  time.  He  must  get  be- 
hind the  scenes.  He  must  seek  a  moment  of 
ecstasy  in  which  he  will  be  raised  above  the 
things  of  the  day  and  of  the  dust  and  ushered 
into  that  august  Presence  which  transcends  the 
works  of  man. 

And  this  is  the  view  of  Philip  which  our  Lord 
combats  here.  He  tells  him  that  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  Father  is  not  reached  in  the  way 
he  supposes.  He  tells  him  that  the  love  of 
the  Father  is  learned  on  the  stage  of  time — 
not  behind  it,  *  He  that  has  seen  Me  hath 
seen  the  Father,  and  how  sayest  thou  then, 
Show  us  the  Father!'  He  tells  him  that  it  is 
not  where  human  work  is  transcended  that  we 
get  our  deepest  glimpse  of  the  Divine;  it  is 
precisely  where  human  work  is  richest — *The 
Father  that  dwelleth  in  Me  doeth  the  works.' 
Would  Philip  believe  in  Divine  fatherhood,  let 
him  study  human  brotherhood.  Let  him  con- 
sider the  spirit  of  Christ  as  it  exists  in  the 
world.  Let  him  ponder  how  through  that 
spirit  man  has  sacrificed  for  man,  how  love  has 


PHILIP  THE  DISILLUSIONED         167 

dared  many  a  cross,  how  sympathy  has  shared 
many  a  sorrow,  how  pity  has  dried  many  a  tear, 
how  compassion  has  healed  many  a  pain,  how 
benevolence  has  assuaged  many  a  hunger.  Let 
him  ponder  these  things,  and  he  will  reach  a 
clearer  vision  of  the  fatherhood  of  God  than  if 
he  stood  in  the  forest  primeval  in  the  solitary 
presence  of  the  Divine. 

Such  is  the  burden  of  Christ's  message  to 
Philip.  I  have  been  struck  with  the  fact  that 
before  it  became  a  formal  message  it  was  made 
a  practical  training.  We  read  that — some 
three  years  earlier — immediately  after  Jesus  had 
called  him  to  join  the  league  of  pity,  he  brought 
another  man  to  the  league — *  Philip  findeth 
Nathanael. '  Why  does  he  rush  at  once  to 
secure  a  companion  in  his  own  calling.?  We 
do  not  wonder  when  we  are  told  that  Andrew, 
after  his  own  call,  finds  his  brother  Simon. 
These  were  brothers,  and  it  was  inevitable 
that  either  adversely  or  favourably  the  act  of 
the  one  should  influence  the  other.  But  Philip 
and  Nathanael  were  not  brothers;  to  find 
the  latter  required  a  seeking  on  the  part  of  the 


i68        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

former.  Why  does  Philip  hasten  to  implant 
in  the  heart  of  another  a  conviction  at  which 
he  himself  had  only  arrived  yesterday?  I  be- 
lieve the  answer  to  be  that  he  was  told  to  do 
so.  I  think  that  the  moment  he  gave  his  al- 
legiance to  Jesus,  Jesus  said  to  him,  *  Find  Me 
an  additional  man.'  And  I  believe  the  reason 
of  this  request  was  not  the  helping  of  Jesus  but 
the  helping  of  Philip.  Jesus  might  have  called 
Nathanael  by  a  telepathic  message;  but  Philip 
would  thereby  have  lost  an  element  in  his  edu- 
cation. If  Philip  was  the  man  we  have  found 
him  to  be — with  a  tendency  to  underrate  the 
practical,  there  could  be  no  better  introduction 
to  his  Christian  training  than  to  give  him  prac- 
tical work.  He  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  go 
home  and  dream  of  twelve  legions  of  angels. 
Let  him  look  to  the  help  of  his  brother-man,  nay, 
let  him  make  an  effort  to  initiate  that  help. 
Let  him  use  his  human  judgment.  Let  him 
find  a  man  himself — one  whom  he  believes  to 
be  fitted  for  the  great  work  of  inaugurating 
the  future  kingdom.  All  education  should  be 
directed   to   the   weak   point   of   a   nature.     If 


PHILIP  THE  DISILLUSIONED         169 

you  see  one  like  Paul  whose  life  has  been  en- 
tirely occupied  with  the  practical,  send  him  into 
Arabia  —  seclude  him  for  a  time  that  he  may 
meditate.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  you  see  one 
like  Philip  disposed  to  look  for  God  in  things 
behind  the  scenes,  send  him  into  the  practical 
world — let  him  find  an  additional  man. 

As  a  further  contribution  to  this  training, 
Philip,  in  the  latest  days  of  Christ's  ministry,  is 
made  the  instrument  of  a  wondrously  practical 
work  quite  on  the  lines  of  his  search  for  Nathan- 
ael.  If  you  or  I  were  suddenly  asked  the  ques- 
tion, Which  of  the  Christian  disciples  brought 
the  earliest  help  to  the  Gentiles.?  I  do  not  think 
we  should  immediately  hit  the  answer.  We 
should  probably  say  '  Paul '  or  *  Peter '  or  *  Ste- 
phen.'  But  in  truth  there  was  one  before  any 
of  these — it  was  Philip.  After  our  Lord  Him- 
self, the  first  who  spoke  a  word  to  the  Gentiles 
was  this  obscure  man  of  Bethsaida.  Before 
Peter  had  called  Cornelius,  before  Stephen  had 
lifted  his  voice,  before  Paul  had  raised  his  ban- 
ner, Philip  had  brought  a  Gentile  band  into 
the  presence  of  Jesus.      True,   they  were   the 


I70         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

descendants  of  Jews ;  *  but  they  had  been  born 
in  a  foreign  land,  bred  in  a  foreign  culture, 
trained  in  foreign  ideas.  They  had  become 
Greeks  in  nationality,  Greeks  in  education, 
Greeks  in  taste,  Greeks  in  manner.  But  they 
had  heard  of  the  fame  of  Jesus,  and  they  longed 
to  see  Him.  Their  pride  in  the  old  ancestry 
was  not  dead.  They  were  glad  that  where  their 
fathers'  homes  had  been,  there  had  risen  a 
great  light.  How  were  they  to  gaze  upon  that 
light  ?  The  Jews  would  now  despise  them,  count 
them  aliens.  Yet  they  would  try.  The  Pass- 
over Feast  was  coming  on;  they  would  go  up 
to  Jerusalem;  perchance  some  one  might  show 
them  the  new  star.  They  come;  and  they  are 
gladdened  by  a  discovery.  Among  the  names 
of  Christ's  inner  circle  they  hear  of  one  which 
is  Greek — Philip.  They  are  attracted  by  the 
kindred  sound.  Is  not  t/izs  the  man  to  lead 
them  to  Jesus — a  man  with  an  affinity  of  name 
to  the  names  of  their  own  countrymen!    And 

'  I  have  taken  this  view  instead  of  the  prevalent  one 
which  makes  these  men  pure  Greeks ;  I  do  not  think  the 
latter  view  sufficiently  accounts  for  their  interest  in  Jesus. 


PHILIP  THE  DISILLUSIONED        171 

so  Philip  becomes  the  medium  of  the  first  Gen- 
tile wave.  To  him  is  it  granted  to  open  the 
door.  To  him  is  committed  the  privilege  of  un- 
veiling the  Christ  to  the  eyes  of  other  lands. 
To  him,  above  all,  is  assigned  the  glory  of  per- 
forming the  great  marriage  between  the  East 
and  the  West,  and  of  joining  the  hand  of  Europe 
to  the  hand  of  Asia! 

Was  there  any  fruit  of  this  union.?  Did  the 
meeting  of  Philip  with  the  Greeks  produce  any 
effect  on  history.?  Let  me  hazard  a  suggestion 
— a  suggestion  which,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  not 
been  made  before,  but  which  has  long  been 
graven  on  my  own  mind.  Some  years  after- 
wards there  appeared  in  the  Christian  world  a 
young  man  of  great  power  and  promise.  He 
was  a  Greek  of  Jewish  descent,  and  his  name 
was  also  Philip.  Like  the  elder  Philip,  he  too 
was  commanded  to  work  in  a  desert — a.  place 
where  to  all  appearance  no  bread  could  be 
found.  Yet  it  was  found — in  rich  superabun- 
dance. In  that  desert  he  met  only  one  man 
whom  he  could  make  a  Christian;  but  that 
one  man  was  the  centre  of  a  whole  kingdom — 


172         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

the  bread  was  multiplied  indefinitely.  Now,  I 
have  always  believed  that  this  second  Philip 
received  his  name  at  baptism  in  honour  of  the 
first.  I  have  always  believed  that  he  was  one 
of  those  Greeks  who  came  to  the  Christian  apos- 
tle with  the  intention  of  seeing  the  Lord.  I 
have  figured  to  myself  the  result  of  that  vision. 
I  have  seen  this  youth  baptised  into  the  new 
faith,  and  in  the  strength  of  gratitude  taking 
the  name  of  his  patron.  I  have  seen  him  go 
forth  fired  with  the  enthusiasm  of  spreading  that 
faith  among  his  countrymen.  I  have  seen  him, 
after  the  death  of  Stephen,  emerge  as  the  cham- 
pion of  these  countrymen  and  claim  their  rights 
in  the  Christian  community.  Then  I  have 
seen  his  sympathies  widen — ^go  beyond  Greece, 
pass  into  Samaria,  travel  into  Ethiopia,  move 
wherever  the  spirit  prompted  him.  If  the  life 
of  such  a  man  was  the  fruit  of  the  visit  to  the 
apostle  Philip,  the  ministry  of  that  apostle  was 
abundantly  blessed. 


PHILIP  THE  DISILLUSIONED         173 

T  ORD,  often,  like  Philip,  I  have  been  under- 
-'— '  rating  my  surroundings.  I  have  been 
complaining  of  my  prosaic  sphere;  I  have  been 
saying,  ^  Whence  shall  I  find  bread  in  this  wil- 
derness to  feed  the  multitude  of  men ! '  I 
have  been  looking  for  aid  to  an  opening  in  the 
heavens — to  the  descent  of  pov/ers  supernal. 
It  never  occurred  to  me  that  one  loaf  of  bread 
could  be  multiplied  into  a  million.  It  never  en- 
tered into  my  mind  that  one  man  could  be  an 
army,  one  life  a  kingdom,  one  soul  a  generation. 
But  Thou  hast  taught  me,  O  my  Father.  Thou 
hast  shown  me  the  triumph  of  my  trifles,  the 
majesty  of  my  rejected  moments.  The  hour 
over  which  I  wept  is  waving  with  banners.  The 
book  over  which  I  slept  is  surging  with  songs. 
The  fence  over  which  I  leapt  is  laden  with  pearls. 
My  fancied  weed  has  become  a  flower;  my  im- 
agined prison  has  become  a  bower;  my  sup- 
posed weakness  has  become  a  tower.  Evermore 
let  me  reverence  the  prosaic  things!  Ever- 
more let  me  uncover  my  head  to  the  place  that 
seems  a  desert!  Let  me  walk  with  solemnity 
beside  the  rill ! — it  may  be  a  river  one  day.     Let 


174         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

me  tread  with  awe  the  village  street! — it  may 
be  a  city  one  day.  Let  me  stand  with  venera- 
tion before  the  squalid  child! — he  may  be  a 
Shakespeare  one  day.  Once,  with  proud  foot  I 
passed  a  hovel  by;  I  was  in  search  of  great 
events,  and  I  lingered  not.  And  lo!  I  had 
passed  the  great  event  of  Thy  world — the  babe 
whose  swaddling  bands  were  to  enfold  all  na- 
tions! The  gold  and  the  frankincense  and  the 
myrrh  were  there,  and  the  motherhood  that 
taught  Thy  fatherhood,  and  the  wisdom  that  had 
found  a  new  worship,  and  the  star  that  had  lit 
a  new  hope !  When  I  am  tempted  to  despise  the 
desert,  let  me  remember,  O  Lord,  the  majesty 
of  the  manger! 


CHAPTER  IX 

MATTHEW   THE   EXALTED 

There  is  nothing  more  striking  in  the  Chris- 
tian Gallery  than  the  variety  in  its  modes  of 
redemption.  Christ  produces  a  revolution  in 
every  soul  with  which  He  comes  into  contact; 
and  yet  in  no  two  cases  is  the  revolution  pre- 
cisely the  same.  Human  weakness  is  as  varied 
in  its  forms  as  human  virtue ;  therefore  the  cure 
of  human  weakness  must  be  also  varied.  In 
the  figures  which  have  already  passed  before  us 
we  must  have  been  struck  beyond  everything 
with  the  absence  of  uniformity  in  their  disease 
and  its  treatment.  We  have  not  found  any  two 
of  them  alike  in  the  symptoms  which  needed  to 
be  healed.  There  is  no  analogy  between  the 
original  defect  of  John  the  Baptist  and  the  orig- 
inal defect  of  John  the  Evangelist ;    the  one  is 

the  narrowness  of  personal  zeal,  the  other  the 
175 


176        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

narrowness  of  personal  pride.  There  is  no  re- 
semblance between  the  imperfect  views  of  Na- 
thanael  and  the  imperfect  views  of  Nicodemus; 
^  the  former  come  from  rustic  simplicity,  the 
latter  from  scholarly  culture.  There  is  no  par- 
allel between  the  cloud  in  the  mind  of  Peter  and 
the  cloud  in  the  mind  of  Thomas ;  the  one  comes 
t  from  want  of  courage,  the  other  purely  from 
want  of  hope. 

I  am  now  approaching  a  figure  of  the  group 
whose  prominent  feature  is  just  the  fact  of  his 
redemption — Matthew  the  Publican.  Our  first 
impression  is  that  we  must  expect  to  find  this 
man  without  any  special  weakness,  but  encrust- 
ed with  a  mass  of  sin  all  over.  We  can  put 
our  hand  upon  the  error  which  signalised  the 
Baptist.  We  can  point  to  the  fault  which  dis- 
tinguished the  evangelist  John.  We  can  indi- 
cate the  weakness  which  marred  the  progress  of 
Peter.  We  can  tell  the  besetting  frailties  which 
lent  struggle  to  the  lives  of  Philip  and  Thomas 
and  Nicodemus.  But  if  we  were  asked  to  spe- 
cialise the  fault  of  Matthew,  I  think  we  should 
say,    '  You  might  as   well  ask   me   to   special- 


MATTHEW  THE  EXALTED  177 

ise  the  fault  of  a  quagmire ! '  We  look  on  this 
man,  not  as  one  with  a  besetting  sin,  but  as 
one  who  had  sin  for  his  very  essence.  I  went 
into  a  country  church  one  day  and  heard  the 
character  of  Matthew  expounded  as  if  his  bad- 
ness were  a  truism.  He  was  everything  that 
was  wicked — an  extortioner,  a  cheat,  a  defraud- 
er,  a  liar,  a  man  dishonest  in  thought  and  word 
and  deed.  Here  was  a  character  with  no  spe- 
cially besetting  sin.  You  could  not  label  him. 
You  could  label  Peter  or  John  or  Thomas,  but 
not  Matthew;  he  was  a  quagmire — he  was  pol- 
lution all  round. 

Now,  let  me  say  at  once  that  this  is  not  the 
view  I  have  taken  of  the  matter.  I  think  Mat- 
thew was  a  man  with  a  special  defect — not  with 
pollution  all  over.  The  latter  supposition  is  neg- 
atived partly  by  the  fact  of  his  call  and  mainly 
by  his  immediate  response  to  that  call.  It  was 
a  call,  not  to  mere  mercy,  but  to  the  height 
of  apostolic  dignity.  I  could  understand  a  man 
like  Judas  becoming  depraved  subsequent  to  or-, 
dination ;   but  I  cannot  understand  a  man  called 

to  ordination  at  a  time  when  he  was  already 
12 


178         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

depraved.  And  if  I  am  reminded  how  the 
heart  can  conceal  its  vices,  still  less  can  I  under- 
stand how  a  heart  with  such  vices  could  care 
for  such  ordination — how  a  man  of  extortion, 
of  fraud,  of  covetousness,  of  avarice  without 
principle  and  greed  without  justice,  could  in 
a  moment,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  give  up 
his  entire  world  and  join  the  ranks  of  poverty. 
I  have  already  said,  in  speaking  of  the  transi- 
tion into  a  new  life,  that  the  actual  plunge  is 
ever  sudden;  but  I  have  also  said  that  there 
is  a  long  walk  to  the  river-side.  A  conversion 
like  this  would  have  been  to  Matthew  an  expe- 
rience of  the  plunge  without  the  walk. 

And  what  is  the  evidence  on  which  rests  the 
unqualified  badness  of  Matthew.?  It  is  the  ob- 
loquy attached  to  his  profession.  The  preacher 
says:  'This  man  was  a  publican — one  of  those 
who  farmed  the  taxes  for  the  Roman  govern- 
ment. Those  who  farmed  the  taxes  were  se- 
lected from  the  lowest  social  strata.  They  were 
originally  poor,  hungry,  ill-clad.  The  occupa- 
tion, therefore,  to  which  they  were  chosen  placed 
them  in  a  sphere  of  strong  temptation.     They 


MATTHEW  THE  EXALTED  179 

had  every  inducement  to  be  unjust,  to  overreach, 
to  exact,  to  falsify,  to  become  the  instruments 
for  bribery  and  corruption.  And  Matthew  was 
one  of  these.  He  was  a  member  of  this  fra- 
ternity, immersed  in  a  trade  which  held  out  a 
prospect  of  gain  to  the  unscrupulous  and  of- 
fered a  life  of  comfort  to  him  who  did  not  resist 
the  tempter.  Surely  a  record  like  his  could 
have  only  one  issue ! ' 

The  logic  of  this  is  deplorable.  It  is  equiva- 
lent to  saying  that,  if  a  man  belongs  to  a  call- 
ing which  involves  a  particular  temptation,  he 
must  be  held  guilty  of  having  yielded  to  that 
temptation.  Consider  for  a  moment.  There 
is  no  profession  known  to  me  which  does  not  in- 
volve its  own  special  temptation.  The  clerical 
calling  tempts  to  narrowness,  the  medical  to 
materialism,  the  legal  to  the  loss  of  sentiment,  ^ 
the  literary  to  a  spirit  of  selfishness.  Yet  one 
of  the  broadest  men  I  ever  knew  was  a  sin- 
cerely orthodox  cleric ;  one  of  the  most  assured 
Christians  I  ever  knew  was  a  leading  physician ; 
one  of  the  most  kindly  sympathisers  I  ever 
knew  was  a  legal  practitioner;    one  of  the  most 


i8o         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

sacrificing  lives  I  ever  knew  was  a  highly  suc- 
cessful writer.  We  must  protest  against  attrib- 
uting ta  any  man  the  special  sin  of  his  calling. 
It  is  unfair;  it  is  negatived  by  a  thousand  facts. 
There  was  nothing  in  Roman  tax  -  gathering 
which  made  vice  in  that  calling  a  necessary  thing. 
In  point  of  fact,  the  vice  came  from  the  outside. 
The  mas Uf^-puh\ic2ins  were  men  of  rank  and 
credit ;  but  they  put  their  work  into  the  hands 
of  subordinates  who  were  often  taken  from  the 
slums.  The  vices  these  exhibited  in  their  pro- 
fession were  brought  with  them  tnlo  their  pro- 
fession ;  they  came  from  the  previous  corruptions 
of  human  nature,  and  no  trade  is  chargeable 
with  them.  We  cannot  morally  label  Matthew 
by  calling  him  *  Matthew  the  Publican. ' 

The  truth  is,  the  obloquy  with  which  Matthew 
was  regarded  by  his  countrymen  did  not  pro- 
ceed from  the  fear  that  he  was  a  bad  man, 
but  from  the  certainty  that  he  was  a  bad  Jew. 
The  most  galling  fact  to  the  Israel  of  later  days 
was  the  fact  that  she  paid  tribute  to  another 
land.  Ideally,  she  claimed  to  be  the  mistress  of 
the  world — the  nation  into  whose  treasury  all 


MATTHEW  THE  EXALTED  i8i 

tribute  should  flow.  To  the  proud  eye  of  the 
prophet  Isaiah,  she  had  been  the  mountain  es- 
tablished on  the  top  of  the  hills,  and  toward  her 
height  the  other  lands  had  looked,  wondering. 
That  such  a  nation  should  pay  taxes  to  a  for- 
eign people,  a  Gentile  people,  was  an  awful 
thought.  It  was  a  pain  worse  than  laceration, 
more  cruel  than  a  blow.  But  there  was  the  pos- 
sibility of  a  pain  more  poignant  still.  It  was 
bad  enough  that  the  tribute  of  homage  from  Is- 
rael should  be  collected  by  a  Roman.  But 
what  if  the  man  who  gathered  it  should  be  a 
son  of  Israel  herself — a  scion  of  her  race,  an 
heir  to  her  promises,  a  nursling  of  her  prophets ! 
What  if  the  man  who  taunted  her  with  her  mis- 
fortunes should  be  one  born  within  her  pale, 
bred  within  her  precincts,  sheltered  within  her 
privileges — one  from  whom  was  due  the  venera- 
tion for  her  sanctuary  and  the  reverence  for  her 
God!  Would  it  not  seem  to  her  as  if  all  her 
calamities  had  culminated  and  as  if  the  cloud  of 
her  sorrow  had  deepened  into  starless  night ! 

Now,  this  often  happened;    and  it  happened 
in  the  case  of  Matthew.     Here  was  a  Jew  who 


i82         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

had  lost  the  last  shred  of  patriotism!     He  had 

forgotten  the  traditions  of  his  ancestors — for- 

gotten  the  parted  waters  of  the  Red  Sea,  and 
A 

the  burning  bush,  and  the  pillars  of  cloud  and 

fire!  He  had  become  oblivious  that  he  was  the 
son  of  a  race  which  claimed  the  ultimate  do- 
minion over  all  the  world !  He  had  not  only  ac- 
cepted without  a  blush  the  domination  by  the 
stranger;  he  had  taken  part  with  the  stranger 
in  his  domination !  He  had  attached  himself  to 
the  enemies  of  his  country — had  become  a  col- 
•  lector  of  their  tribute  from  his  own  conquered 
land !  This  was  hard  upon  that  land.  The  man 
who  acted  thus  was  bound  to  be  execrated  by 
his  race.  He  was  execrated  on  that  ground 
alone.  No  amount  of  personal  vices  would  in 
the  eyes  of  his  countrymen  have  added  to  the 
enormity  of  his  sin,  and  no  amount  of  personal 
virtues  would  in  the  slightest  degree  have  mini- 
mised that  sin.  His  deed  was  itself  to  them 
the  acme  of  all  iniquity,  from  which  nothing 
could  detract  and  which  nothing  could  intensify. 
The  blackness  of  Matthew's  character  in  the 
eyes  of  the  Jew  was  the  fact  of  his  apostasy. 


MATTHEW  THE  EXALTED  183 

But  the  question  is,  What  is  its  blackness  in 
our  eyes  ?  We  sympathise  much  with  the  feel- 
ing of  his  countrymen;  yet,  after  all,  that  is  a 
local  matter,  and  the  question  should  be  viewed 
apart  from  local  considerations.  We  must  ask 
ourselves,  Where  lay  the  precise  fault  in  this  ab- 
sence of  patriotism?  When  we  have  answered 
that,  we  shall  have  found  the  real  weak  point 
in  the  character  of  Matthew — the  point  which 
made  him  an  object  for  Christ's  compassion,  and 
the  point  which  suggested  Christ's  mode  of  cure. 

It  is  quite  evident  to  me  that  a  defect  in 
Jewish  patriotism  always  proceeded  from  one 
definite  defect  in  character — a  want  of  self-re- 
spect. I  do  not  say  that  every  man  who  has 
lost  his  patriotism  has  lost  his  self-respect,  for 
every  man's  country  is  not  meant  to  be  identical 
with  his  own  soul.  But  the  Jew's  was.  I  have 
already  said  in  speaking  of  Nicodemus  that  in  the 
Jewish  community  the  nation  and  the  individual 
were  one.  A  man's  loves  and  fears  were  for 
his  native  land.  His  land  was  a  part  of  himself 
— the  largest  part ;  its  preservation  was  his 
main  motive  for  living.     A  Jew  could  only  for- 


i84        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

get  his  country  by  ceasing  to  care  for  himself — 
by  losing  self-respect.  All  in  him  that  was  per- 
sonal was  national — ^his  feasts,  his  sacrifices,  his 
family,  his  hopes,  his  sins,  his  sorrows,  his  very 
aspirings  after  immortality.  To  destroy  within 
his  heart  the  care  for  his  country  was  to  destroy 
within  his  heart  all  care  for  anything. 

Here,  then,  is  the  real  source  of  Matthew's 
want  of  patriotism;  it  is  want  of  self-respect. 
His  defect  is  the  extreme  opposite  of  that  which 
we  found  in  the  original  nature  of  the  evangel- 
ist John.  John,  as  I  have  indicated,  had  too 
big  a  mirror ;  Matthew  had  no  mirror  at  all. 
John  saw  his  youthful  figure  at  an  exaggerated 
height;  Matthew  beheld  no  reflection  of  him- 
self whatever.  John  required  to  have  his  glass 
smashed;  Matthew  needed  to  have  a  glass  con- 
structed. John  had  too  much  pride;  Mat- 
thew had  too  little.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
say  which  of  the  extremes  is  the  more  fraught 
with  danger — the  excess  of  self-respect  or  the 
absence  of  self-respect.  Too  steadfast  a  gaze 
at  self  has  slain  its  thousands;  but  it  may  be 
doubted  if  ih^  failure  to  see  one's  self  has  not 


MATTHEW  THE  EXALTED  185 

produced  as  many  victims.  Pride  is  a  positive 
state;  want  of  self-respect  is  a  negative  state. 
But  I  think  the  mind  suffers  as  much  by  its 
moments  of  negation  as  by  its  moments  of  posi- 
tive evil.  The  heart  filled  with  personal  vanity 
is  not  safe;  but  the  heart  unfilled  by  any  per- 
sonal interest  is  no  safer.  There  are  in  my 
opinion  as  many  young  men  led  astray  by  the 
want  of  a  looking-glass  as  by  the  over-prominence 
of  a  looking-glass.  It  is  a  dangerous  thing 
when  we  express  a  real  truth  by  the  words,  *  I 
do  not  care.' 

I  have  said  that  the  want  of  self-respect  is  in 
itself  a  negative  quality.  I  wish  to  emphasise 
the  point,  because  it  is  often  mistaken  for  things 
from  which  it  is  quite  different.  For  instance, 
we  associate  this  quality  with  meanness.  Yet 
the  mean  man  is  never  without  his  mirror. 
He  errs,  not  by  want  of  self-respect,  but  by  a 
low  ideal  of  what  in  the  self  is  respectable. 
He  sees  himself  in  the  glass  adorned  in  purple 
and  fine  linen  and  faring  sumptuously,  every  day. 
He  says,  *  This  is  "to  live,"  this  is  "to  prosper," 
this  is  "to  be  respected"!'     Then  follows  the 


i86        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

conclusion,  'This  is  the  only  thing  worth  striv- 
ing for;  let  me  work  for  nothing  else,  aim  at 
nothing  else,  dream  of  nothing  else;  let  me  seek 
wealth  at  all  times  and  by  all  means ! ' 

Will  any  man  say  that  such  a  soul  is  in  want 
of  a  mirror!  Does  its  meanness  not  come  from 
its  mirror — from  the  sight  of  a  false  ideal  of 
what  it  is  to  be  great !  Such  a  soul  has  reached 
its  dishonesties,  its  frauds,  its  extortions,  its 
unjust  dealings,  by  nothing  else  than  a  mode  of 
self-contemplation — by  gazing  into  a  glass  which 
paints  the  little  as  if  it  were  the  grand.  If  Mat- 
thew had  lost  his  Jewish  patriotism,  he  was  not 
that  man,  for  he  who  lost  his  Jewish  patriot- 
ism lost  his  glass  too,  and  had  no  longer  an 
aim  in  life  either  high  or  low. 

Again.  We  often  associate  want  of  self- 
respect  with  abjectness.  By  abjectness  I  mean 
one's  feeling  that  he  is  a  poor  creature — that  he 
is  a  worm  and  no  man.  And  yet  this  condition 
is  also  incompatible  with  the  loss  of  the  mirror. 
It  is  itself  a  looking  into  the  glass.  It  is  by  the 
reflection  in  that  glass  I  come  to  the  conclu- 
sion   that   I   am   a   poor   creature.     The   word 


MATTHEW  THE  EXALTED  187 

'self-respect'  literally  means  self  -  regarding, 
self-beholding.  In  the  case  of  the  crushed  or 
abject  man,  he  beholds  himself  as  an  object 
of  compassion,  as  a  thing  worthy  to  win  pity, 
as  one  who  deserved  a  better  fate.  The  man 
who  has  lost  his  mirror  cannot  be  an  abject  man. 
That  would  be  a  contradiction  in  terms;  he 
would  have  no  shadow  of  himself  to  look  at, 
and  so  could  not  grieve  over  it.  Matthew  was 
not  an  abject  man.  Not  even  after  his  call  does 
he  sit  in  sackcloth  and  ashes  over  the  mem- 
ory of  his  past.  On  the  contrary,  he  makes  a 
great  feast  in  his  own  house  and  invites  his 
fellow-publicans.  The  act  could  never  have 
proceeded  from  one  beholding  his  natural  face 
in  a  glass. 

What,  then,  is  the  bane  of  having  no  mirror.? 
It  is  being  down  without  knowing  it.  It  is  the 
living  by  the  day — ^without  a  plan,  without  a 
principle.  It  is  a  vegetable  life.  It  is  the  ab- 
sence of  all  desire  to  look  forward  to  anything, 
to  look  backward  to  anything,  to  look  upward 
to  anything.  It  is  the  enclosure  within  the  mo- 
ment.    It  is  the  experience  of  a  state  of  mind 


i88         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

which  may  not  always  be  doing  harm,  but  which 
is  never  doing  good.     It  may  keep  the  precepts, 

*  Thou  shalt  not  kill, '   *  Thou  shalt  not  steal, ' 

*  Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness  ' ;  but  it  will 
have  no  impulse  to  seek  and  to  save,  no  bosom 
on  which  to  lay  the  burdens  of  humanity. 

What,  therefore,  did  Matthew  need.?  It  was 
a  mirror — a  sense  of  exaltation.  It  is  not  enough 
that  a  man  has  no  depression ;  he  must  have  ex- 
altation. I  will  go  further.  I  think  that  in  spir- 
itual matters  the  valley  is  nearer  to  the  moun- 
tain than  is  the  plain.  I  believe  that  a  life 
of  conscious  depression  will  sooner  reach  the 
sense  of  a  height  than  a  life  of  commonplace 
prosaic  routine  which  looks  neither  up  nor 
down.  Matthew  was  a  man  of  the  plain.  He 
was  not,  like  Thomas,  a  man  of  the  valley. 
Thomas  had  depression,  in  other  words,  he 
saw  himself  in  a  glass  and  pitied  himself.  But 
Matthew  had  no  depression.  His  was  not  a 
valley  experience.  He  lived  on  level  ground 
without  depths  or  heights.  He  never  saw  him- 
self—\\^  had  no  mirror.  To  have  a  mirror  you 
must  be  either  on  the  mountain  or  in  the  vale; 


MATTHEW  THE  EXALTED  189 

Matthew's  was  as  yet  a  plant's  life.  Jesus 
said,  '  I  must  give  this  man  a  sight  of  his  high- 
er self,  of  his  possible  self. '  He  felt  that  what 
Matthew  needed  was  a  stimulus — something  to 
lift  him  up.  There  were  those  to  whom  He 
came  with  a  cross — those  who,  like  the  woman  of 
Samaria,  had  to  be  wakened  to  their  own  shame. 
But  to  this  man  He  came  with  a  crown.  What 
Matthew  needed  to  feel  was  his  own  importance. 
Let  him  be  lifted  up  to  the  mountain — sud- 
denly, drastically,  unexpectedly.  Let  him  get  a 
sight  of  his  future  self,  what  he  is  coming  to, 
what  is  coming  to  him.  Let  him  see  himself  as 
God  meant  him  to  be — a  man  of  dignity,  a  man 
of  power.  That  was  what  Jesus  did  to  Matthew 
the  Publican.  He  came  without  warning,  with- 
out preparation.  He  stood  before  him  at  the 
receipt  of  custom.  He  ignored  all  the  crowd 
assembled  there.  He  fixed  His  gaze  upon  him 
alone  —  apart  from  his  fellows,  apart  from  the 
yielders  of  his  tribute.  He  addressed  him  with- 
out preamble,  without  title — as  if  He  were  sum- 
ming up  a  long  process  of  reasoning;  He  said, 
bluntly  and  boldly,  '  Follow  Me ! ' 


I90         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

For  the  first  time  in  his  life  Matthew  found 
himself  a  man — a  man  of  importance,  a  man 
of  mark.  He  awoke  to  find  himself  famous 
— an  object  of  interest,  a  centre  of  attraction. 
He  had  the  novel  experience  of  standing  with 
a  mirror  in  his  hand  looking  at  his  own  person. 
So  novel  was  the  experience  that  it  carried 
him  away.  Surprise  overmastered  him.  That 
Christ  should  choose  him — the  cipher,  the  no- 
body, the  man  who  had  forfeited  his  right  to 
call  himself  a  son  of  Israel — this  was  a  start- 
ling thing.  That  he,  who  had  never  been  dig- 
nified enough  to  care  what  the  world  might 
think  of  him,  should  be  suddenly  called  to  stand 
before  the  world  as  an  example,  was  a  thought 
almost  weird  in  its  strangeness.  The  newness 
of  the  sensation  quite  conquered  him.  *  Follow 
Me ! '  said  the  voice ;  and  he  lingered  not  a 
moment.  He  did  not  wait  for  enlightenment; 
he  had  got  the  one  light  whose  absence  had  made 
him  ignoble  —  self-respect.  His  exodus  came 
with  his  exaltation.  The  instant  he  said,  *  I  am 
somebody,'  he  rose  and  left  Egypt.  He  went 
out  from  the  receipt  of  custom  and  passed  over 


MATTHEW  THE  EXALTED  191 

into  the  Christian  land.  Like  Israel,  he  made 
his  '  passover '  a  subject  of  congratulation. 
Our  last  glimpse  of  him  but  one  is  at  that  ban- 
quet which  he  spread  as  a  farewell  to  the  old 
and  an  inauguration  of  the  new. 

But  there  is  one  gHmpse  more,  and  it  is  to 
me  the  most  suggestive  of  all.  The  next  time 
we  see  Matthew  he  has  a  pen  in  his  hand;  he 
is  writing  a  gospel.  Volumes  have  been  multi- 
plied on  that  gospel.  Discussions  have  been 
reiterated  as  to  the  source  of  its  materials  and 
the  origin  of  its  information.  Commentaries 
have  been  accumulated  exhausting  every  possi- 
ble meaning  of  his  words  and  embodying  every 
thought  involved  in  his  teaching.  It  would  seem 
as  if  the  subject  were  at  last  threadbare.  And 
yet  there  is  one  fact  about  this  gospel  which, 
so  far  as  I  know,  has  never  been  spoken — its 
connection  with  Matthew's  call.  We  are  in  the 
habit  of  regarding  it  as  a  purely  impersonal 
piece  of  writing  —  without  any  note  of  autobi- 
ography or  incidental  emergence  of  the  author's 
memory.  The  truth,  as  I  believe,  is  that  the 
very  central  idea  of  the  book  is  itself  a  note 


192         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

of  autobiography.  What  is  that  central  idea? 
It  is  the  spirit  of  patriotism.  The  Gospel  of 
'  ^  Matthew  is  the  most  patriotic  of  all  the  gospels. 
His  Christ  is  the  Christ  of  Israel — born  king 
of  the  Jews.  All  that  He  does  is  made  to  echo 
the  glories  of  Matthew's  native  land.  Every- 
thing about  Him  is  the  flowering  of  Israel's 
prophecies,  is  done  'that  it  might  be  fulfilled 
which  was  spoken.'  The  glory  of  Messiah  is 
that  He  has  glorified  this  favoured  nation — 
proved  that  she  was  right  in  her  aspirations 
and  in  her  dreams.  This  patriotism  of  the  First 
Gospel  is  of  course  known  to  every  schoolboy. 
But  have  we  considered  what  it  means  in  re- 
lation to  the  character  of  Matthew  himself.^ 
Nothing  less  than  a  moral  revolution.  This 
man's  defect  had  all  along  been  a  want  of  pa- 
triotism. He  had  ignored  the  claims  of  his  coun- 
try, he  had  disregarded  the  ties  of  his  people. 
But,  when  for  the  last  time  our  eyes  rest  upon 
him,  he  is  a  man  transformed.  He  has  become 
rich  just  where  he  was  poor,  overflowing  just 
where  he  was  deficient.  He  is  a  patriot  of  the 
patriots.    His  country  which  yesterday  was  noth- 


MATTHEW  THE  EXALTED  193 

ing  is  to-day  all  in  all.  He  has  put  on  the  arms 
of  his  race — is  prepared  to  fight  for  it,  to  die  for 
it.  He  has  declared  himself  a  son  of  Israel 
and  is  ready  to  lavish  on  her  all  his  praise. 

And  I  think  there  is  something  very  grand 
and  very  beautiful  in  this  final  glimpse  which 
we  receive  of  Matthew  the  Publican.  It  is  our 
glimpse  of  one  who  has  got  back  his  self-respect 
and  longs  to  atone.  He  has  been  for  years  de- 
nuding his  country  of  her  due.  He  now  says,  *  I 
must  make  it  up  to  her  at  last,  though  late;  I 
must  compensate  her  for  the  gifts  I  have  with- 
held!' I  say  there  is  something  fine  in  this 
man's  light  at  evening-time.  Though  it  is 
evening,  though  the  day  is  far  spent,  though 
many  golden  hours  and  golden  opportunities 
have  been  lost,  he  will  not  despair  of  undoing 
his  past.  He  will  concentrate  into  the  evening 
sky  what  he  should  have  spread  over  the  whole 
day.  He  will  bestow  his  gifts  in  double  meas- 
ure. He  will  assign  to  his  native  land  a  glory 
which  he  could  not,  even  if  he  would,  have  given 
in   his   morning    hours.     For   now   the    Christ 

has  come — ^Judah  has  received  her  latest  flower. 
13 


194         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

He  can  tell  her  of  that  flower,  can  tell  her  of' 
her  share  in  its  production.  He  can  tell  her 
how  she  has  been  justified,  glorified,  raised  out 
of  the  category  of  vain  dreamers  and  proclaimed 
y^  to  be  a  nation  which  has  a  star  in  heaven.  That 
is  why  Matthew  in  the  evening  writes  his  life 
of  Jesus. 

LORD,  teach  me  the  dignity  of  my  own  soul ! 
Many  have  warned  me  of  the  pride  of 
life;  and  it  is  evil  and  harmful  indeed.  But  I 
think  an  equal  danger  has  come  from  my  hours 
of  recklessness.  I  think  I  have  never  been  fur- 
ther from  Thee  than  in  the  moment  when  I  have 
said,  *  Life  is  a  worthless  thing ! '  Whenever  I 
go  out  without  my  mirror  I  am  very  near 
temptation.  When  I  say  in  my  heart,  '  It  will 
be  all  the  same  a  hundred  years  hence,'  I  am 
perilously  close  to  the  precipice.  In  that  mo- 
ment I  have  broken  my  mirror — have  lost  sight 
of  life's  magnitude,  life's  value.  When  I  lose 
the  sight  of  life's  value,  I  begin  to  value  lower 
things;  when  I  break  my  mirror,  I  look  into 
the  muddy  pool.     My  Father,  I  think  it  is  for 


MATTHEW  THE  EXALTED  195 

idle  hearts  that  Satan  finds  mischief.  Save 
me  from  an  idle  heart — a  heart  that  has  nothing 
to  love!  If  my  heart  has  its  mirror,  yea,  even 
its  mirror  of  care,  I  shall  not  touch  the  miry 
clay.  All  idleness  is  the  heart's  idleness — the 
heart  ceasing  to  vibrate.  Though  my  hands 
be  folded,  though  my  lips  be  silent,  though 
my  feet  be  resting,  though  my  fancy  be  repos- 
ing, yet,  if  my  heart  be  carrying  its  mirror,  I 
am  not  idle.  Keep  that  glass  undimmed,  O  my 
Father!  Whatever  else  I  lose,  let  me  never 
lose  my  love — the  sense  that  life  holds  some- 
thing dear!  Let  no  cloud  curtain  it!  Let  no 
storm  sink  it !  Let  no  waters  wash  it  away ! 
May  every  beam  brighten  it!  May  every  hope 
hallow  it!  May  every  fear  freshen  it!  May 
every  dream  deepen  it !  May  every  cross  crown 
it !  May  every  rock  rivet  it !  May  every  strug- 
gle strengthen  it !  May  every  providence  purify 
it!  May  it  be  my  star  in  night,  my  song  in 
stillness,  my  flower  in  winter,  my  rainbow  in 
tears,  my  help  in  sorrow,  my  home  in  exile,  my 
youth  in  autumn,  my  island  in  the  sea!  Never 
let  my  heart  drop  the  mirror  of  its  glory ! 


CHAPTER  X 

ZACCHEUS   THE   CONSCIOUS-STRUCK 

The  name  of  Zaccheus  occupies  only  a  few 
verses  of  St.  Luke's  Gospel.  It  does  not  occur 
in  any  other  Gospel,  and  throughout  the  Scrip- 
tures it  is  never  mentioned  again.  But  a  man's 
place  in  the  Gallery  is  by  no  means  determined 
by  his  prominence  in  the  Record.  What  decides 
a  man's  place  in  the  Gallery  is  his  uniqueness. 
Is  there  anything  in  his  face  or  figure  which  sep- 
arates him  from  all  the  surrounding  portraits.-* 
If  there  is,  then,  however  seldom  he  may  be  al- 
luded to,  he  is  entitled  to  a  prominent  position, 
in  the  Scripture  Gallery;  if  there  is  not,  then, 
however  frequent  be  the  recurrence  of  his  name, 
he  has  no  right  to  a  distinctive  place.  The 
question  is,  Has  Zaccheus  anything  new  to  say 
— anything  that   has   not  been   said  by   Peter 

or  John  or  Philip  or  Thomas  or  Nathanael  ?    Is 
196 


ZACCHEUS  THE  CONSCIOUS-STRUCK    197 

the  phase  of  Christianity  which  he  expresses 
different  from  the  phases  which  have  been  pre- 
viously expressed?  Does  he  stand  for  a  class 
which  has  not  been  already  accounted  for ;  does 
he  represent  a  section  of  mankind  who  have  as 
yet  received  no  spokesman?  Then  is  he  am- 
ply entitled  to  occupy  a  front  ground  in  that 
great  collection  of  portraits  which  has  conveyed 
to  all  times  the  separate  phases  of  the  Christian 
life. 

And  I  say  that  Zaccheus  is  such  a  man.  He 
flashes  out  a  new  shade  of  colour  in  the  Great 
Gallery.  He  is  not  exactly  like  any  of  his  pred- 
ecessors. The  nearest  approach  to  him  is  Mat- 
thew— both  were  publicans.  Yet,  unlike  Mat- 
thew, Zaccheus  was  not  an  object  of  personal 
recrimination  to  his  countrymen.  He  was  not, 
as  Matthew  was,  a  subordinate  who  collected 
the  taxes.  He  was  a  mas ter--puh\ic3.n — a  rich 
man  living  in  Jericho  who  simply  estimated  the 
revenues  and  reported  them  to  the  government. 
The  fruits  of  his  conversion  no  doubt  resembled 
those  brought  forth  by  Matthew,  and  this  is 
easily  explained  by  the  identity  of  their  pro- 


198        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

fessions.  But  the  men  originally  were  very  dif- 
ferent. Matthew  was  a  man  with  no  interest 
in  life;  Zaccheus  is  essentially  the  reverse — a 
man  of  curiosity.  Matthew  had  slow  pulses; 
the  heart  of  Zaccheus  beat  rapidly.  Matthew 
needed  to  be  called;  Zaccheus  took  the  initia- 
tive. Matthew  required  stirring  up;  Zaccheus 
would  run  a  race  or  climb  a  tree  in  the  eager- 
ness to  secure  his  object. 

If  I  were  asked  to  state  in  a  sentence  what 
Zaccheus  represents,  I  should  say  he  stands  for 
the  average  man  wakened  by  conscience.  Hith- 
erto in  this  Gallery  we  have  not  seen  the  average 
man.  We  have  seen  men  whose  likeness  will 
be  found  in  every  age  and  clime;  but  that  does 
not  make  one  an  average  man.  Peculiarities 
may  be  reproduced  in  every  age  and  clime ;  but 
they  will  not  be  reproduced  over  the  whole  mass. 
Peter  is  not  an  average  man;  he  is  the  speci- 
men of  a  type  of  mind.  John  is  not  an  aver- 
age man;  he  is  the  representative  of  a  class. 
Nathanael  and  Nicodemus  and  Thomas  and 
Philip  are  not  average  men ;  they  stand  for  par- 
ticular phases  of  human  nature.     But  Zaccheus 


ZACCHEUS  THE  CONSCIOUS-STRUCK  199 

belongs  to  the  majority.  There  is  nothing 
peculiar  about  him,  nothing  marked,  nothing 
uncommon.  His  special  feature  is  his  want  of 
specialty;  it  is  a  feature  which  we  have  never 
met  before,  and  which  in  the  remaining  figures 
we  shall  not  meet  again.  Everything  about  his 
character  is  middle-sized.  Physically,  he  is  of 
short  stature;  but  mentally,  he  is  neither  short 
nor  tall.  He  is  neither  a  paragon  of  excellence 
nor  a  monster  of  wickedness.  He  is  not  a  hero 
and  he  is  not  a  demon.  He  has  many  good 
points,  but  they  never  blaze;  he  has  many  bad 
points,  but  they  never  freeze.  He  is  the  average 
man.  He  is  as  virtuous  as  his  neighbours.  He 
never  transgresses  use  and  wont.  He  does 
nothing  wrong  in  the  way  of  business  for  which 
he  cannot  quote  a  precedent.  He  may  overleap 
the  laws  of  rectitude;  but  he  would  be  miser- 
able to  be  told  that  he  had  violated  the  mer- 
cantile standard  of  those  around  him.  He  lives 
up  to  his  own  measurement;  but  he  measures 
himself  by  the  mass. 

Such  is  my  reading  of  the  original  character 
of  Zaccheus.     He  was  a  man  who  was  always 


200        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

standing  before  a  judgment-throne  to  give 
an  account  of  what  he  had  done ;  but  it  was  not 
the  judgment -throne  of  Christ.  It  was  the 
throne  of  public  opinion  before  which  he  stood 
—  the  standard  of  those  within  his  immedi- 
ate environment.  When  he  transgressed  that 
tribunal,  his  conscience  troubled  him;  but  the 
tribunal  itself  was  a  very  inferior  one — his  con- 
science ought  to  have  demanded  more.  What 
he  needed  was  to  have  his  conscience  placed 
at  the  bar  of  a  higher  throne  of  judgment.  He 
required  to  see  a  loftier  ideal,  to  feel  the  pres- 
ence of  a  more  exacting  law.  Our  first  impres- 
sion is  that  a  man  of  such  a  comparatively  cor- 
rect life  is  favourable  soil  for  the  planting  of 
Christian  seed.  It  appears  easier  to  convert 
him  than  one  who  is  down  in  the  depths.  But 
I  think  this  impression  is  erroneous.  There 
is  none  so  difficult  to  move  upward  as  the  aver- 
age man — none  whom  it  is  so  hard  to  quicken 
into  a  Christian  conscience.  And  the  reason 
is  that  the  man  has  a  conscience  already  of  a 
very  keen  though  very  inferior  stamp.  The 
tribunal  of  public  opinion  blunts  him  to  every 


ZACCHEUS  THE  CONSCIOUS-STRUCK  201 

other  tribunal.  He  is  lulled  into  complacency. 
The  judgment -throne  is  low-set,  but  it  is  the 
highest  he  has  known,  and  it  has  been  his  stan- 
dard through  life.  He  has  always  reverenced 
the  average — the  golden  mean.  Christianity 
makes  its  appeal  to  something  abnormal — to 
those  who  feel  as  if  they  were  below  the  aver- 
age, as  if  they  were  the  chief  of  sinners,  as  if 
they  could  only  beat  upon  their  breast  and  cry, 
'  Unclean ! '  The  man  who  lives  in  Jericho  and 
is  content  with  the  consciousness  that  he  is 
up  to  the  average  life  of  Jericho  has  a  natural 
disqualification  for  meeting  Christ  —  the  dis- 
qualification of  those  who  think  they  have  al- 
ready attained. 

What  enabled  Zaccheus  to  surmount  this 
natural  barrier.-*  Strange  to  say,  it  was  the 
fact  that  his  religious  deficiency  was  counter- 
balanced by  a  purely  secular  impulse — the  spirit 
of  curiosity.  The  picture  as  delineated  in 
the  Gallery  is  graphic.  Jesus  is  coming  to 
Jericho,  and  Jericho  is  on  fire  with  expectation. 
His  fame  has  gone  before  Him.  Crowds  have 
gathered  in  the  streets  to  await  His  arrival — ^anx- 


202         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

ious  inquirers  about  the  health  of  body  or 
soul.  Zaccheus  is  anxious  neither  about  body 
nor  soul ;  but  he  is  eager  to  see.  If  he  has  any 
concern,  it  is  about  his  physical  limitations. 
How  shall  a  small  man  like  him  be  able  to  pro- 
cure a  sight  of  Jesus  with  such  a  dense  pha- 
lanx in  front  of  him !  An  idea  strikes  him.  He 
feels  sure  that  Jesus  will  not  address  the  people 
while  they  are  in  the  streets — He  will  advance 
into  the  open  and  let  the  multitude  follow 
Him.  Little  Zaccheus  will  get  ahead  of  them. 
He  will  run  before  into  the  woodlands  and  climb 
up  to  the  branch  of  a  tree,  where  his  small  stat- 
ure will  be  compensated  by  artificial  height  and 
he  will  see  over  the  heads  of  taller  men. 

Now,  I  venture  to  say  that  in  all  the  Gospel 
narrative  this  is  a  unique  approach  to  the  per- 
son of  Christ.  All  the  others  were  either  an- 
swers to  His  own  invitation  or  advances  of  the 
sufferer  impelled  by  human  pain.  Here  is  a 
man  who  has  not  been  called  and  who  has  not 
been  afflicted.  He  has  neither  been  summoned 
from  the  receipt  of  custom  like  Matthew  nor 
driven   by   the   burden    of   sorrow   like  Jairus. 


ZACCHEUS  THE  CONSCIOUS-STRUCK  203 

He  has  no  ailment  about  him,  no  depression 
about  him.  He  is  alive  with  the  spirit  of  youth, 
and  he  is  brought  by  an  impulse  which  is  the 
very  index  of  the  youthful  spirit  —  curiosity. 
Unique  as  it  is  in  the  Gospel,  it  is  ever  the  ap- 
proach of  the  average  man  towards  every  great 
and  good  thing.  It  is  the  child's  attraction 
to  school,  the  boy's  attraction  to  knowledge, 
the  youth's  attraction  to  travel,  the  man's 
attraction  to  nature.  Announce  a  descriptive 
lecture  on  Palestine  illustrated  by  the  magic- 
lantern,  and  the  young  people  will  come  in 
crowds.  They  will  not  be  drawn  by  the  prom- 
ised description  nor  even  by  the  promised  illus- 
tration of  it  —  an  interest  in  Palestine  requires 
mental  development.  They  will  be  attracted 
by  the  magic  -  lantern  itself;  the  scenes  de- 
picted will  be  interesting  not  as  scenes  of  Pal- 
estine, but  as  feats  of  pictorial  transformation. 
Yet,  who  does  not  see  that  in  the  future  the 
memory  of  these  things  will  become  grapes  of 
Eshcol.  What  is  now  a  mere  source  of  curios- 
ity will  come  to  the  mature  mind  as  a  hallowed 
remembrance  clothing  in  form  and  colour  those 


204         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

spots  of  sacred  story  which  would  otherwise 
convey  nothing  but  a  name. 

Zaccheus  came  to  the  temple  of  Christian 
truth  as  the  average  man  is  led  to  all  truth — 
on  the  wings  of  curiosity.  His  was  apparently 
the  lowest  motive  in  all  that  crowd.  Yet  he 
is  singled  out  as  if  he  were  the  hero  of  the 
crowd.  To  him,  sitting  in  his  sycamore  tree, 
the  voice  of  Jesus  cries,  '  Make  haste,  Zaccheus, 
and  come  down,  for  to  -  day  I  must  abide  at 
thy  house.'  The  favour  is  so  great,  and  the 
privilege  so  well-nigh  unparalleled,  that  we  are 
tempted  to  ask  if  we  have  not  underrated  the 
spirit  of  curiosity.  Surely  the  Master  must 
have  seen  in  this  man's  motive  something  more 
than  we  see  —  something  which  placed  him  on 
a  higher  level  than  those  who  had  come  to 
be  cured  of  bodily  maladies!  Can  it  be  that 
there  is  after  all  a  mental  element  in  curiosity 
— an  element  which  is  indicative  of  the  charac- 
ter and  predictive  of  the  life !     Let  us  see. 

There  is  to  my  mind  a  great  resemblance  be- 
tween the  spirit  of  curiosity  and  the  spirit  of 
prayer.     Neither  of  them  is  in  itself  either  good 


ZACCHEUS  THE  CONSCIOUS-STRUCK  205 

or  bad;  it  depends  on  what  you  are  curious 
about,  it  depends  on  what  you  are  in  want  of. 
Prayer  may  be  of  three  kinds — immoral,  non- 
moral,  or  moral.  If  I  ask  for  vengeance  on  an 
enemy,  that  is  immoral  prayer.  If  I  ask  for  a 
chariot  and  horses,  that  is  non-moral  prayer — 
it  is  neither  saintly  not  sinful,  but  purely  sec- 
ular. If  I  ask  to  be  made  holy,  harmless,  and 
undefiled,  that  is  moral  prayer — it  is  a  sign  of 
incipient  purity.  So,  also,  there  are  three 
kinds  of  curiosity  —  immoral,  non-moral,  and 
moral.  If  I  am  eager  to  see  a  bull-fight,  that 
is  immoral  curiosity — it  is  a  wish  to  view  pain. 
If  I  am  eager  to  see  a  man  who  professes  to 
lift  heavy  weights,  that  is  non-moral  curiosity 
— it  is  neither  good  nor  bad.  If  I  am  eager  to 
hear  a  great  preacher  who  has  for  months  been 
attracting  crowds  around  him,  then,  even  though 
it  may  be  accompanied  by  no  anxiety  about  my 
spiritual  state,  that  is  moral  curiosity — it  indi- 
cates a  listening  attitude  in  the  human  soul 
and  the  presence  of  an  open  door. 

I  do  not  wonder,    then,    that   Zaccheus  was 
singled  out  from  the  multitude.     His  body  was 


2o6        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

on  a  sycamore  tree  and  was  therefore  easily 
distinguishable.  But  his  soul  was  also  on  a 
sycamore  tree — raised  above  the  crowd.  His 
very  physical  elevation,  separating  him  as  it  did 
from  outward  contact  with  Jesus,  showed  that 
he  wanted  nothing  physical — that  his  motive 
was  curiosity  of  mind.  I  do  not  wonder  that 
this  approach,  prayerless  as  it  was,  imper- 
sonal as  it  was,  unsolicitous  as  it  was,  made  an 
impression  on  Jesus  beyond  the  common  cries 
for  bread  and  sustenance.  It  was  like  the 
impression  made  on  Him  by  Thomas.  But 
Thomas  came  with  low  hope — if  he  asked  noth- 
ing it  was  because  he  expected  nothing.  Zac- 
cheus  had  the  spirit  of  youth;  his  hopes  were 
high;  only,  they  were  mental  hopes.  He 
swung  up  his  little  body  beyond  the  reach  of 
temporal  help;  but  he  bent  the  eye  of  his  soul 
upon  the  vision  of  Jesus.  What  he  wanted  to 
see  was  a  spiritual  glory,  and  Christ  rated  the 
man  according  to  his  desire.  He  picked  him 
out  from  the  mass  and  said,  *  I  must  abide  at 
thy  house  to-day. ' 

I  wish  here  to  direct  attention  to  a  frequent 


ZACCHEUS  THE  CONSCIOUS-STRUCK  207 

peculiarity  in  the  method  of  Jesus.  When  He 
is  about  to  confer  a  favour  on  any  one,  He  often 
begins  by  asking  a  favour  from  hhn.  How- 
ever dimly  Zaccheus  is  aware  of  his  mental 
need,  Jesus  knows  it  very  well  and  is  prepared 
to  remedy  it.  Yet,  instead  of  telling  him  that 
he  is  a  poor  creature  requiring  Divine  aid.  He 
asks  2SAfrom  him.  He  says,  '  I  require  shelter 
to-night;  no  house  will  be  so  convenient  for 
me  as  yours ;  can  you  give  me  room  .-* '  We 
see  the  same  thing  in  the  case  of  the  woman  of 
Samaria,  where  He  begins  by  asking  a  drink 
of  water.  We  see  it  in  the  case  of  Magdalene, 
where  He  allows  her  service  to  precede  His 
cure.  We  see  it  in  His  acceptance  of  the  invi- 
tation to  abide  at  Emmaus.  We  see  it  in  His 
receiving  of  hospitality  at  many  a  feast.  We 
see  it  in  His  submission  to  the  outpouring  on 
His  person  of  the  costliest  ointment,  and  in  His 
willingness  to  partake  of  material  comforts  from 
the  hands  of  the  women  of  Galilee. 

These  facts  are  not  accidental.  They  are  a 
part  of  the  deep  moral  insight  of  Jesus.  What 
is  the   relation  which   He  wishes   to  establish 


2o8         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

between  Himself  and  His  followers?  It  is  one 
of  communion.  Now,  communion  cannot  be 
on  one  side.  It  is  not  possible  that  such  a 
relation  can  exist  between  any  two  minds  if  the 
one  is  active  and  the  other  passive.  There  is 
nothing  so  paralysing  as  the  perpetual  receiv- 
ing of  benefits.  Even  in  a  case  of  forgiveness 
the  dehnquent  should  be  allowed  to  do  some- 
thing for  his  pardoner.  If  I  have  offended  you, 
there  is  a  breach  between  us;  and  that  breach 
is  not  healed  by  the  mere  fact  that  you  forgive 
me.  Even  after  the  forgiveness,  I  am  still  in 
the  valley  and  you  on  the  mount.  It  is  not 
enough  that  you  descend  to  me;  I  must  be 
allowed  to  meet  you  half-way.  Pardon  is  not 
reconciliation.  In  one  sense  it  is  the  reverse 
of  reconciliation,  for  it  emphasises  the  differ- 
ence between  your  height  and  my  depth.  Rec- 
onciliation seeks  to  abolish  that  difference.  It 
aims  to  break  inequality,  to  restore  communion. 
It  cannot  restore  communion  while  the  sac- 
rifice is  all  on  one  side.  I  who  am  pardoned 
must  be  suffered  to  do  something  for  you  the 
pardoner.     It   is   not    enough    that   you   bring 


ZACCHEUS  THE  CONSCIOUS-STRUCK  209 

forth  the  best  robe  and  put  it  on  me;  I  must 
be  allowed  to  give  a  garment  to  you.  Christ  is 
coming  to  pardon  Zaccheus;  but  He  does  not 
want  this  pardon  to  leave  Zaccheus  in  the  valley. 
He  desires  him  to  have  a  memory  that  he  too 
was  the  bestower  of  a  gift,  that  he  was  able 
to  extend  a  courtesy  in  return  for  favours  re- 
ceived. And  so,  with  a  fine  touch  of  graceful- 
ness. He  makes  it  appear  as  if  the  favour  were  to 
Him.  He  asks  hospitality,  shelter,  companion- 
ship for  the  day.  As  He  had  begged  the  Sa- 
maritan for  a  draught  from  the  well.  He  begs 
Zaccheus  to  make  Him  a  guest  for  the  hour; 
and  in  both  cases  for  the  same  reason — that  the 
mind,  before  its  vision,  may  have  a  sense  of  in- 
dependent dignity. 

Jesus,  then,  became  for  one  day  the  guest  of 
Zaccheus ;  and  at  the  evening-time  there  dawned 
for  him  a  great  light.  It  was  a  light  which  rose 
upon  his  conscience.  He  stood  before  a  new 
judgment-seat ;  and  there  sat  on  it  '  one  like 
unto  a  son  of  man.'  Hitherto,  the  arbiter  of 
his  conscience  had  been  public  opinion.  Sud- 
denly public  opinion  became  valueless.  All  the 
14 


2IO        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

social  magnates  fled  from  his  throne,  and  in  their 
place  there  stood  one  solitary  figure  wielding  the 
sceptre  over  his  heart  and  giving  the  law  to  his 
life.  In  the  morning  he  had  said,  *  How  will 
society  regard  me  ?  *  in  the  evening  his  question 
is,  *  What  will  Jesus  say  ? '  In  the  morning  he 
was  comforted  by  the  low  standard  of  a  multi- 
tude; in  the  evening  he  is  ruffled  by  the  lofty 
standard  of  One.  In  the  morning  he  was  self- 
complacent  by  viewing  the  numbers  on  his 
own  road ;  in  the  evening  he  is  perturbed  by 
the  sight  of  a  single  individual  on  the  summit 
of  a  commanding  hill. 

Yet,  there  is  something  startling  about  this 
revival  in  the  conscience  of  Zaccheus.  It  is 
not  exactly  what  we  should  expect.  We  ex- 
pect to  see  an  awakened  man  bow  his  head  and 
cry,  *  Lord,  be  merciful  to  me,  a  sinner ! '  Zac- 
cheus feels  himself  to  be  in  moral  debt;  but, 
strange  to  say,  it  is  to  man.  He  has  two  cries 
of  remorse;  but  they  are  both  for  the  human. 
He  feels  he  has  done  too  little  good,  and  he  feels 
he  has  done  too  much  bad.  He  wants  to  remedy 
both — the  one  by  charity  and  the  other  by  com- 


ZACCHEUS  THE  CONSCIOUS-STRUCK  211 

pensation,  'The  half  of  my  goods  I  give  to  the 
poor,  and  if  I  have  taken  any  thing  from  any 
man  by  false  accusation,  I  restore  him  fourfold. ' 
We  hear  the  same  double  cry  from  the  lips  of 
Matthew ;  he  makes  a  feast  to  express  his  char- 
ity, and  he  writes  a  Gospel  to  redeem  his  want 
of  patriotism.  But  the  strange  thing  is  that 
these  men  should  not  have  first  wished  to  put 
themselves  right  with  God.  When  David  kills 
Uriah,  he  takes  a  theological  view  of  the  mat- 
ter, and  cries,  in  the  psalm  traditionally  attrib- 
uted to  him,  *  Against  Thee,  Thee  only,  have 
I  sinned,  and  done  this  evil  in  Thy  sight.' 
Why  should  Zaccheus  take  a  human  view  of 
the  matter!  Why  should  he  allow  the  injury 
to  his  fellow-creatures  to  obscure  his  sense  of 
an  offended  Lawgiver!  Why  should  he  look 
with  dismay  on  what  he  has  failed  to  do  and 
what  he  has  done  amiss  for  humanity  when  there 
is  another  and  a  graver  subject  which  should 
press  upon  his  thoughts — his  violation  of  the 
statutes  of  heaven,  his  breaking  of  the  command- 
ments of  God! 
But  look  deeper.     Do  you  suppose  Zaccheus 


212         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

thought  this  *  another  subject ' !  Do  you  think 
that  when  he  lamented  his  shortcomings  to- 
wards his  fellow-men  he  regarded  himself  in  any- 
other  light  than  as  a  transgressor  of  Divine  law ! 
Remember  into  what  he  had  been  baptised  that 
day !  He  had  accepted  a  new  definition  of  God 
— ^had  said,  '  God  is  love. '  What  did  that  mean  ? 
It  meant  that  for  him  in  all  time  to  come  the 
law  of  God  was  broken  when  the  rights  of  man 
were  violated.  It  meant  that  to  outrage  the 
justice  of  God  was  to  trample  on  the  heart  of 
his  brothers.  It  meant  that  to  leave  poverty 
unassisted,  to  pass  privation  unpitied,  to  turn 
aside  from  the  sight  of  struggle  and  pain,  was  to 
commit  sacrilege  against  the  Divine  mercy-seat, 
to  stain  the  steps  of  the  altar  of  sacrifice.  It 
meant  that,  if  Zaccheus  were  conscious  of  an 
unpaid  debt  to  man,  it  was  really  the  con- 
sciousness of  an  unpaid  debt  to  God,  and  that 
the  road  to  atonement  with  God  was  through 
the  rehabilitation  of  man.  That  was  the  new 
view  which  burst  upon  the  soul  of  this  man  of 
Jericho.  It  was  a  view  which  embodied  the 
whole  doctrine  of  the  coming  Calvary.     It  taught 


ZACCHEUS  THE  CONSCIOUS-STRUCK  213 

that  the  way  to  reconciliation  with  the  Father 
is  to  lay  down  life  for  the  brethren,  and  that  to 
atone  for  past  sin  is  to  bear  the  cross  of  human- 
ity. It  was  really  an  annulling  of  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  secular  and  the  sacred.  To 
the  eye  of  Zaccheus  all  duties  became  church 
duties.  His  receipt  of  custom  became  a  Di- 
vine service  to  be  piously  performed.  The  ex- 
change took  the  sanctity  of  a  temple.  The 
gifts  bestowed  upon  the  widow  and  the  orphan 
were  treasures  lent  to  the  Lord.  The  coin  laid 
on  the  lap  of  poverty  was  a  holy  offering  to  heav- 
en. The  raising  of  a  life  from  secular  want 
and  temporal  despair  was  the  building  of  a  new 
synagogue  which  one  day  might  be  fit  for  the 
habitation  of  the  King  of  kings. 

And  this  union  of  the  secular  and  the  sacred 
within  the  heart  of  Zaccheus  explains  something 
which  separates  his  call  from  most  other  Gospel 
calls — which  gives  it  an  aspect  more  consonant 
with  modern  than  with  ancient  life.  When 
Christ  summoned  men  to  join  His  standard,  the 
obedience  to  the  summons  commonly  involved 
a   change   of   occupation.     *  We   have   left   all. 


214         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

and  followed  Thee'  is  the  cry  of  the  disciples. 
The  fishermen  of  Galilee  were  transformed  into 
fishers  of  human  souls;  Peter,  Andrew,  James, 
John,  Philip,  forsook  their  nets  when  they  be- 
came members  of  the  league  of  pity.  Matthew 
himself,  whose  case  is  the  most  analogous  to  that 
of  Zaccheus,  is  called  out  of  his  profession;  he 
leaves  the  business  of  tax-gathering  when  he  fol- 
lows Jesus.  But  Zaccheus  gets  no  such  com- 
mand. The  change  wrought  in  him  is  all  within. 
He  is  not  told  to  give  up  his  trade,  to  abandon 
his  daily  resorts,  to  quit  the  exchange  and  the 
market-place.  He  is  not  led  to  think  that  the 
employment  he  has  been  pursuing  is  common  or 
unclean.  Rather  does  there  flash  upon  him 
the  knowledge  that  he  has  been  polluting  that 
which  is  holy,  staining  that  which  is  sacred, 
soiling  that  which  is  Divine.  There  breaks 
upon  him  the  conviction  that  to  be  a  good  man 
he  needs  not  the  wings  of  a  dove  to  fly  away 
— that  he  may  stand  here  and  be  holy,  work 
here  and  be  pure,  toil  amid  the  perishable  things 
of  time  and  yet  perform  the  deeds  of  a  saint 
of   the    Most    High.     I    think   there   is   some- 


ZACCHEUS  THE  CONSCIOUS-STRUCK  215 

thing  very  fine  in  the  fact  that,  amid  the  many 
Gospel  pictures  of  men  leaving  the  old  world 
to  win  the  new,  there  is  one  which  depicts  a 
human  soul  in  a  different  attitude — as  impreg- 
nating with  its  own  purity  the  things  among 
which  all  along  it  has  lived  and  moved  and  had 
its  being. 

ABIDE  in  my  house  one  day,  O  Son  of  Man ! 
A  voice  has  sung  in  Thy  praise,  *  I  tri- 
umph still  if  Thou  abide  with  me.'  Yet  it  is 
not  for  the  triumph  I  need  Thine  abiding;  it  is 
rather  for  the  overshadowing  of  my  too-tri- 
umphant self.  I  am  ever  triumphant  in  myself 
when  Thou  art  not  with  me.  I  am  like  the 
artist  that  has  never  seen  a  picture  but  his  own. 
He  is  very  proud  of  his  own,  for  he  has  no 
artistic  conscience  to  see  its  blemishes.  He  will 
never  be  great  till  he  sees  its  blemishes — till 
one  of  the  master-painters  come  and  'abide* 
with  him.  I  too  am  without  conscience  till  Thy 
coming.  I  cannot  see  my  spots  till  the  sun 
rise.  It  is  not  my  blemishes  which  drive  me  to 
Thy  light;    it  is  Thy  light  which  drives  me  to 


2i6         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

my  blemishes.  Never  can  I  learn  the  poverty 
of  my  own  painting  until  Thy  portrait  is  hung 
upon  my  wall.  Then  my  true  conscience  will 
be  born;  then  shall  I  realise  my  own  nothing- 
ness. From  Thy  light  shall  come  my  loathing; 
from  Thy  beauty  shall  come  my  burden;  from 
Thy  song  shall  come  my  sigh.  I  shall  be  dissat- 
isfied in  the  dawn.  I  shall  be  humbled  on  the 
height.  I  shall  be  convicted  when  I  put  on  the 
crown.  Rise  upon  my  night  that  I  may  know 
my  night !  Sing  in  my  silence  that  I  may  search 
my  silence!  Shine  in  my  heart  that  I  may 
hate  my  heart!  Flood  me  with  Thy  love  that 
I  may  learn  my  lovelessness !  Touch  me  with 
Thy  peace  that  I  may  perceive  my  pain !  Take 
me  up  to  the  mount,  O  Lord,  take  me  up  to  the 
mount!  for  only  in  Thy  pure  air  shall  I  find 
my  foulness,  and  only  in  an  upper  room  shall 
I  discover  the  depth  below.  I  shall  cease  to 
triumph  in  myself  if  Thou  shalt  *  abide  with  me. ' 


CHAPTER  XI 

JAMES   THE   SOFTENED 

All  the  figures  we  have  been  considering  have 

been  men  of  the  spring.     What  I  mean  is  that 

they  recognised  a  power  in  Christ  the  moment 

He  was  presented  to  them.     They  may  have 

erred  as  to  where  that  power  lay  —  Nicodemus 

may  have   seen  it   too  much   in   the  physical, 

Thomas  too  little;    but  a  power  of  some  kind 

they  all  at  once  recognised.     We  are  coming 

now,    however,    to   a   figure   which   reveals   an 

exception  to  the  rule;    it  is  that  of  James  the 

Lord's  brother.     I  would  call  him  distinctively 

the  man  of  the  autumn.     It  is  not  that  in  point 

of  time  he  was  late  in  becoming  a  Christian — in 

years  he  was  young  when  he  joined  the  cause 

of  Christ.     But  he  was  old  in  experience.     He 
217 


2i8         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

had  resisted  the  Christian  influence  longer  than 
any  of  his  apostolic  contemporaries.  And  the 
fact  is  more  remarkable  because  outwardly  he 
was  more  privileged  than  any  of  these.  He 
was  a  member  of  Christ's  own  family — prob- 
ably an  inmate  of  His  home  at  Nazareth.  He 
is  called  'the  Lord's  brother.'  What  that 
means  I  shall  not  here  discuss.  Whether  he  was 
a  cousin  of  Jesus,  whether  he  was  the  child 
of  Joseph  by  a  former  marriage,  or  whether  he 
was  a  son  of  Mary  subsequent  to  the  birth  at 
Bethlehem,  has  been  keenly  disputed.  Person- 
ally, I  lean  to  the  last  view.  But  the  point 
here  is  that,  whichever  view  we  take,  this  man 
had  outward  opportunities  of  contact  with  Jesus 
such  as  were  not  enjoyed  by  any  of  his  corti- 
rades.  In  spite  of  that,  he  seems  at  first  to 
have  been  as  great  an  unbeliever  as  Saul  of 
Tarsus.  There  has  always  been  to  me  a  deep 
significance  in  that  saying  of  St.  John  that  the 
followers  of  Christ  were  *  not  born  of  blood.' 
He  must  have  had  in  his  mind  the  fact  that 
physical  consanguinity  had  been  proved  in  the 
case  of  Jesus  to  be  no  advantage  to  a  man — 


JAMES  THE  SOFTENED  219 

that  one  could  have  family  affinity  with  Him, 
live  in  the  same  house  with  Him,  sit  at  the  same 
board  with  Him,  engage  in  the  same  work  with 
Him,  listen  to  His  conversation  on  the  most 
familiar  topics  of  every  day,  and  yet  be  fur- 
ther away  from  Him  than  a  Matthew  at  the  re- 
ceipt of  custom  or  a  Nicodemus  in  the  midst 
of  the  Sanhedrin. 

You  will  remember  also  that  this  slowness 
to  accept  Christianity  was  not  the  result  of  re- 
ligious indifference.  It  would  not  be  too  much 
to  say  that  it  was  the  result  of  religious  inten- 
sity. There  never  was  a  young  man  more  nat- 
urally devout  than  James  the  Lord's  brother. 
His  misfortune  was  that  devoutness  was  to 
him  identical  with  severity.  It  was  essential 
to  him  that  religion  should  be  a  hard  thing,  a 
painful  and  laborious  thing.  That  a  man  should 
be  raised  into  the  Divine  life  instantaneously 
was  for  him  a  contradiction  in  terms.  That 
the  soul  by  a  single  act  of  faith  should  soar  into 
the  presence  of  God  was  in  his  view  impossible. 
He  was  opposed  to  revival  movements  because 
they  were  rapid  movements ;    he  thought  Je- 


220        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

sus  was  '  beside  Himself. '  ^  His  idea  of  piety 
was  to  spend  whole  hours  in  the  wrestling  of 
prayer ;  tradition  says  that  his  knees  had  become 
hard  by  the  process.  God  was  to  him  a  Goal 
whose  glory  consisted  in  not  being  easily  won 
— this  was  the  belief  of  his  countrymen,  the 
faith  of  his  fathers.  James  had  by  nature  a 
mind  sternly  conservative.  Paul  describes  him- 
self as  one  who  had  learned  to  be  content  with 
any  circumstances  he  was  placed  in.  James 
went  further;  he  had  learned  to  idolise  the  cir- 
cumstances he  was  placed  in.  He  had  hard- 
ened himself  against  change.  Even  in  trans- 
formed years  he  delighted  to  think  of  God  as 
without  'variableness  or  the  least  shadow  of 
turning ' ;  originally,  he  delighted  to  think  of 
himself  so.  He  would  have  no  innovation,  no 
new  notions,  no  revolutions  in  opinion;  relig- 
ion was  for  him  something  whose  form  was 
fixed  once  for  all. 


'  So  I  gather  from  the  comparison  of  the  twenty-first 
and  thirty-second  verses  of  the  third  chapter  of  Mark. 
I  regard  the  'brethren'  of  the  later  verse  as  identical 
with  the  'friends  '  of  the  former. 


JAMES  THE  SOFTENED  221 

So  far  as  I  know,  this  state  of  mind  continued 
with  James  all  through  the  earthly  ministry  of 
Jesus.  His  obduracy  resisted  the  closest  per- 
sonal contact  with  the  Master — a  contact  ex- 
tending to  the  minutiae  of  the  daily  life.  But 
when  the  visible  Christ  was  withdrawn,  when 
the  shadows  of  Calvary  had  fallen  and  the  per- 
sonal contact  had  become  a  thing  of  the  past,  it 
was  then  that  the  revelation  came.  Paul  records 
that  revelation  in  a  brief  sentence;  he  says  of 
the  departed  Christ,  '  He  was  seen  of  James.  * 
I  think  this  vision  of  the  departed  Christ  was 
James's  first  clear  seeing.  To  my  mind  there 
is  a  strong  analogy  between  his  experience  and 
the  experience  of  Paul.  They  belonged  to  op- 
posite schools;  yet  I  think  there  is  a  greater 
resemblance  between  Paul  and  James  than  be- 
tween Paul  and  Luke,  Paul  and  Silas,  or  Paul 
and  Timothy.  Both  were  reared  in  rigidness. 
Both  were  opposed  to  Christianity.  Both  were 
men  of  the  autumn — bringing  in  their  sheaves 
when  the  day  had  begun  to  decline.  Both 
recognised  Christ's  glory  only  after  He  had 
passed  away  from  earth.     Both,  after  their  vis- 


222         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

ion,  began  a  new  regime  and  became  the  lead- 
ers of  their  respective  parties.  There  are  no 
two  men  whose  lives  present  so  many  points  of 
parallel. 

But  the  one  point  of  difference  is  in  the  orig- 
inal privilege  of  James.  Paul  was  not  brought 
up  in  the  companionship  of  Jesus;  in  no  per- 
sonal sense  had  he  ever  known  Christ  after  the 
flesh.  But  James  had ;  his  intercourse  had  been 
of  the  closest.  And  in  relation  to  his  autumn 
experience,  this  is  the  difficulty  to  be  accounted 
for.  Paul  recognised  Christ  whenever  he  saw 
Him;  James  saw  Him  daily  without  recognis- 
ing Him.  In  this  latter  case  the  question  is. 
Why }  Why  was  it  expedient  for  this  man  that 
Christ  should  go  away,  why  had  the  night  to 
come  ere  he  could  see  Him }  The  man  of  Tar- 
sus had  no  meeting  on  the  shores  of  Galilee; 
James  dwelt  within  the  very  walls  which  shel- 
tered the  youth  of  Jesus.  Why  is  it  that  James 
was  no  nearer  than  Paul  to  the  earthly  recog- 
nition of  the  Son  of  Man } 

I  think  you  will  find  that  there  are  two  rea^ 
sons  —  deeply  rooted  in  human  nature  and  ap- 


JAMES  THE  SOFTENED  223 

plicable  to  all  times.  The  first  would  sound  like 
a  paradox  if  it  were  not  verified  by  experience. 
We  all  accept  it  as  a  truism  that  the  great  dis- 
tance of  one  being  from  another  is  unfavourable 
to  the  revelation  of  one  being  to  another.  But 
it  is  less  frequently  considered  that  an  ex- 
treme opposite  case  is  equally  unfavourable.  It 
is  less  frequently  considered  that  a  very  close 
proximity  of  two  beings,  provided  the  proximity 
has  never  been  interrupted,  is  just  as  preju- 
dicial to  personal  knowledge  as  would  be  their 
existence  in  separate  lands.  We  are  apt  to 
think  that  James  had  a  special  privilege  and 
that  Paul  had  not.  The  truth  is  that  neither 
had  a  privilege.  Each  had  a  barrier  inter- 
posed between  him  and  his  Lord ;  but  they  were 
opposite  barriers — Paul  was  too  far  away,  James 
was  too  near. 

That  extreme  nearness  retards  perception  is 
a  matter  of  daily  observation.  It  is  just  as  true 
of  our  perception  of  things  as  of  our  perception 
of  persons.  One  would  suppose,  for  example, 
that  the  habitual  dwellers  in  a  scene  of  rare 
beauty  would  be  peculiarly  alive  to  the  attrac 


224         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

tions  of  physical  nature.  The  reverse  is  the  case. 
These  are  of  all  people  the  least  responsive  to 
the  beautiful.  If  a  stranger  comes  in  among 
them,  he  is  transfixed,  dazzled,  by  the  splendour 
of  the  scene;  but  his  enthusiasm  rather  sur- 
prises them.  We  should  suppose,  again,  that 
the  constant  inhabitants  of  a  city  would  know 
more  about  that  city  than  those  coming  into  it 
from  other  places.  Yet  it  often  happens  that 
a  traveller  learns  more  of  a  town  in  a  week  than 
many  of  its  population  learn  all  through  their 
lives.  We  should  suppose,  once  more,  that 
those  living  continuously  in  a  salubrious  atmos- 
phere would  be  free  from  all  illness  arising  from 
atmospheric  causes.  Yet  this  is  not  the  case. 
The  unvaried  presence  of  one  climate  is  like 
the  unvaried  application  of  a  somnolent  drug — 
it  loses  its  effect.  A  change  of  air  will  event- 
ually be  found  beneficial,  even  though  the  new 
air  be  less  balmy  than  the  old.  The  mind  must 
co-operate  with  the  body  to  preserve  the  health 
of  man.  It  is  not  enough  that  an  atmosphere 
is  genial;  I  must  feel  it  to  be  genial.  It  must 
enter  into  me  not  only  as  a  draught  but  as  a 


JAMES  THE  SOFTENED  225 

joy.  And  if  this  joy  is  to  be  felt,  it  must  not 
be  an  unvaried  possession.  It  must  be  inter- 
rupted to  be  known;  it  must  be  withdrawn  to 
be  appreciated;  it  must  be  supplanted  by  a 
shadow  to  be  valued  as  a  light. 

Ascend  from  things  to  persons,  and  you  will 
find  a  manifestation  of  the  same  principle.  It 
is  not  the  inmates  of  one  house  who  are  the 
best  judges  of  the  personality  of  each  other. 
Even  such  an  external  matter  as  physical 
growth  is  most  easily  detected,  not  by  a  habit- 
ual inhabitant  of  the  same  dwelling,  but  by  one 
who  has  returned  after  many  days.  In  order  to 
examine  my  brother-man  it  is  essential  that 
either  he  or  I  should  stand  back.  The  nearness 
disqualifies  for  observation.  I  knew  a  lady 
who  had  under  her  charge  one  who  was  af- 
flicted with  a  brain  affection.  She  was  eager 
from  time  to  time  that  some  test  should  be 
applied  as  to  whether  the  sufferer  were  men- 
tally improving  or  declining.  But  she  was  quite 
unable  to  apply  the  test  herself;  the  fact  of 
living  constantly   together  made  it   impossible 

to  distinguish  between  minute  shades  of  men- 
15 


226         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

tal  gradation.  What  did  she  do  under  the  cir- 
cumstances? She  brought  the  sufferer  period- 
ically to  one  who  knew  both  of  them,  but  who 
was  living  in  a  totally  different  atmosphere. 
His  comparative  distance  placed  him  at  an 
advantage;  it  enabled  him  to  observe  those 
indications  of  mental  change  which  were  alto- 
gether indiscernible  by  a  nearer  spectator. 

We  arrive,  then,  at  the  conclusion  that,  for 
acquiring  a  rapid  knowledge  of  Christian  truth, 
to  be  the  Lord's  brother  was  a  disadvantage. 
The  physical  relationship  was  itself  fitted  to 
make  James  a  man  of  the  autumn.  But  I  think 
there  was  a  second  reason  why  the  Christian  life 
of  James  was  retarded  rather  than  accelerated 
by  his  growing  up  under  the  same  roof  with 
Jesus.  I  allude  to  the  fact  that  Christianity 
seems  in  the  beginning  at  variance  with  home 
duties.  It  shares  this  reproach  in  common  with 
all  poetry.  Christianity  is  a  poetic  system.  It 
professes  to  lift  the  heart  into  a  higher  and 
fairer  world.  By  the  man  of  home  duties  such 
professions  are  looked  upon  with  disfavour,  and, 
the  more  true  they  are,  they  are  regarded  with 


JAMES  THE  SOFTENED  227 

more  disfavour.  To  have  the  heart  intent  on 
a  fairer  world,  whether  in  the  sphere  of  art  or 
poetry  or  Christ,  is  deemed  by  the  prosaic  mind 
a  disqualification  for  the  things  of  home.  Mar- 
tha is  always  under  the  impression  that  Mary  is 
debarred  from  helping  her  by  the  fact  that  she 
sits  at  the  feet  of  the  Master  and  listens  to  the 
music  of  another  land ! 

Now  remember,  James  was  by  nature  a  pro- 
saic man;  even  grace  did  not  make  him  other- 
wise. Grace  never  changes  the  distinctive  sound 
of  an  instrument.  It  does  not  make  the  flute 
a  violin  or  the  trumpet  a  harp;  what  it  does 
is  to  improve  the  quality  of  each  instrument. 
James  remained  to  the  last  a  man  of  prosaic 
duty.  His  role  was  that  of  a  practical  worker, 
and  he  played  that  role  to  the  end.  But  at 
the  beginning  he  thought  that  this  role  was  in- 
compatible with  high  thinkings  —  incompatible 
with  poetic  flights  or  lofty  musings  or  enraptur- 
ing visions.  He  would  have  said  that  the  man 
who  takes  the  spade  in  his  hand  should  consider 
only  the  environment  of  the  spade  and  the 
hand — only   that   soil  which   he   is   required  to 


228         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

fructify,  only  those  sunbeams  which  he  is  able 
to  utilise,  only  such  attributes  of  the  wind  and 
of  the  rain  as  conduce  to  the  growth  of  the 
garden. 

But  James  lived  to  change  his  mind.  How 
do  we  know  that.^  Because  he  has  left  us  a 
letter — one  of  the  most  remarkable  epistles  in 
the  New  Testament,  embodying  the  ripest  re- 
sults of  his  Christian  experience.  And  the  bur- 
den of  that  letter  is  a  discovery  which  James 
has  made — 2l  discovery  which  has  softened  his 
whole  nature.  He  has  found  that  prosaic  work, 
home  duty,  humanitarian  service,  so  far  from 
being  at  variance  with  thoughts  above  the  hour, 
is  itself  the  legitimate  fruit  of  these  thoughts. 
*  I  will  show  you  my  faith  by  my  works, '  he 
cries — '  I  will  let  you  see  how  much  better  my 
practical  duties  have  been  done  since  I  entered 
into  the  secret  of  Christ's  pavilion  and  gazed 
upon  the  vision  of  a  brighter  day.'  James  has 
here  struck  upon  a  far-reaching  principle — that 
the  common  duties  of  to-day  are  best  done  by 
the  light  of  to-morrow.  We  see  it  even  in  domes- 
tic service — which  is  God's  simile  for  His  own 


JAMES  THE  SOFTENED  229 

service.  The  domestic  servant  has  to  perform 
the  duty  of  the  hour;  but  she  will  do  it  best  if 
she  has  a  hope  beyond  the  hour.  Has  she  the 
chance  of  a  holiday.  Has  she  the  prospect  of 
promotion.  Has  she  the  promise  of  an  in- 
creased emolument.  Has  she  news  of  some  dear 
one  coming  home.  Then,  even  though  she  be 
jaded  and  languid  and  weary,  whatever  her  prov- 
ince may  be  it  will  be  well  fulfilled — the  rooms 
will  be  well  swept,  the  silver  will  be  well  pol- 
ished, the  table  will  be  well  attended,  the  meal 
will  be  well  prepared.  Not  one  of  us  can,  in  mo- 
ments of  fatigue  and  lassitude,  do  our  work  ade- 
quately if  we  see  nothing  beyond  the  hour. 

If  you  look  at  the  letter  of  James  in  this 
light,  I  think  there  will  flash  upon  it  a  new 
meaning  and  a  new  radiance.  What,  for  ex- 
ample, is  the  import  of  that  remarkable  passage 
in  the  twenty-third  verse  of  the  first  chapter — 
*  If  any  be  a  hearer  of  the  word,  and  not  a  doer, 
he  is  like  unto  a  man  beholding  his  natural 
face  in  a  glass '  ?  I  paraphrase  it  thus :  *  No 
man  can  do  practical  work  by  seeing  his  soiled 
face  in  a  glass — by  looking  exclusively  on  his 


23©         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

naturally  mean  aspect  and  squalid  surroundings. 
That  will  not  help  you  to  act;  it  will  depress 
you,  it  will  paralyse  you.  If  you  want  to  be 
aided  in  your  work,  you  must  gaze  into  an  ideal 
mirror — must  see  yourself,  not  as  you  are,  but 
as  you  ought  to  be,  as  you  may  be,  as  you  shall 
be.  You  must  behold  your  better  self,  your 
coming  self,  your  Godward  self.  You  must 
measure  your  possibilities,  not  by  viewing  the 
marred  image  in  the  looking-glass  of  the  past, 
but  by  contemplating  the  glorious  form  which 
is  foreshadowed  in  the  mirror  of  the  future.' 

This  was  what  James  had  himself  found  by 
experience.  He  was  doing  the  same  prosaic 
work  which  he  had  ever  done;  but  he  was  do- 
ing it  much  better.  The  reason  was  not  that 
his  eye  was  more  intently  fixed  on  the  hour, 
but  that  he  had  come  to  see  something  beyond 
the  hour.  He  had  received  a  promise  of  pro- 
motion. There  had  opened  before  his  vision 
a  prospect  of  green  fields.  There  had  sounded 
in  his  ear  a  strain  of  far-off  music.  There  had 
been  wafted  to  his  sense  a  perfume  of  sweet 
flowers.     The  vision  and  the  music  and  the  per- 


JAMES  THE  SOFTENED  231 

fume  had  passed  into  his  soul  and  thence  into 
his  hand.  They  had  given  a  new  energy  to  his 
mindy  and  that  energy  had  streamed  through 
his  body.  It  had  made  him  a  better  workman,  a 
better  servant,  a  better  organiser.  It  had  given 
him  more  speed,  more  concentration,  more  skill. 
He  had  found  that  the  things  of  the  spirit 
helped  the  things  of  the  flesh. 

Take  another  passage  from  this  remarkable 
letter,  and  you  will  see  again  how  James  had 
changed  his  mind  about  the  antagonism  between 
prosaic  work  and  ecstatic  contemplation.  The 
words  to  which  I  allude  are  these,  *  The  fervent 
prayer  of  a  righteous  man  is  powerful  by  its 
working.'  The  idea  is  that  inward  trust  helps 
the  outward  hand.  Let  me  illustrate  what  he 
means.  He  himself  gives  us  a  definition  of 
what  he  understands  by  religion  —  *  Pure  relig- 
ion and  undefiled  before  our  God  and  Father 
is  this,  to  visit  the  fatherless  and  the  wid- 
ows in  their  affliction  and  to  keep  unspotted 
from  the  world. '  Now,  as  a  mere  outward  act, 
this  is  a  most  difficult  thing  to  do.  If  our  view 
is  Hmited  to  the  earthly  horizon,   this  visiting 


232         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

is  to  us  a  positive  pain.  To  come  into  contact 
with  scenes  of  misery,  of  poverty,  of  destitu- 
tion, is  a  soul-depressing  thing  if  one  has  no 
comfort  to  bring.  Outside  of  religion,  one  could 
only  continue  such  visiting  by  systematically 
hardening  his  heart.  All  pessimism  hardens; 
despair  is  ever  benumbing.  And  because  it 
is  benumbing,  it  is  unfavourable  to  work.  It 
may  visit  afflicted  widows  and  orphans,  but  it 
will  be  as  one  visits  the  tombstones — with  the 
conviction  that  nothing  can  be  done.  This  was 
what  James  felt  in  the  days  when  his  heart 
was  unsoftened.  He  found  that  he  could  only 
preach  resignation,  submission,  sullen  silence 
— that  he  could  not  lift  by  one  hair-breadth  the 
stone  from  the  sepulchre  door.  But  when  as  a 
Christian  he  began  to  pray,  his  heart  was  soft- 
ened with  hope.  When  there  came  to  him  an 
inward  trust  that  these  children  of  affliction  were 
already  folded  in  the  arms  of  a  heavenly  Father 
who  would  by  no  means  let  them  go  until  He 
had  blessed  them,  then  it  was  that  James  felt 
the  impulse  to  action.  As  the  ice  of  despair 
melted,  the  river  of  life  began  to  show  its  pos- 


JAMES  THE  SOFTENED  233 

sibilities.  As  a  gleam  appeared  in  the  sky,  a 
new  energy  came  to  the  arm.  He  had  heart  to 
toil  for  these  people,  spirit  to  work  for  them, 
nerve  to  plan  for  them;  the  fervent  trust  had 
inspired  effectual  service.  He  felt  what  every 
sick -nurse  feels — that  hope  is  a  dynamic  power, 
that  the  skill  of  the  hand  is  aided  by  the  light 
in  the  heart,  and  that  the  crushing  labour  of  to- 
day is  shared  and  alleviated  by  the  strength 
received  from  to-morrow. 

James,  then,  through  the  softening  contact 
of  Christianity,  is  conscious  of  an  increased  power 
of  work.  But  according  to  this  singular  letter, 
there  is  another  thing  he  is  conscious  of — an 
increased  power  of  toleration.  He  says,  *The 
wisdom  that  is  from  above  is  first  pure,  then 
peaceable,  gentle  and  easy  to  be  intreated.* 
There  was  a  time  when  he  would  have  reasoned 
in  an  opposite  way.  He  would  have  said,  '  The 
wisdom  from  above  is  pure,  and,  because  it  is 
pure,  it  is  uncompromising  to  all  other  sys- 
tems.' What  has  effected  the  change.?  That 
the  change  is  effected,  is  manifest.  It  is  not 
only   breathed   in   his   letter;     it  is   evinced   in 


234         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

his  life.  This  man  whose  spring  was  so  sombre, 
so  cold,  so  forbidding,  is  in  his  autumn  the  har- 
binger of  peace.  It  is  to  him  that  we  are  in- 
debted for  the  first  oil  thrown  on  the  waters  in 
the  great  controversy  between  the  Gentile  and 
the  Jew.  It  is  to  him  that  we  owe  the  decision 
of  that  peaceful  Council  at  Jerusalem  where 
a  kindly  hand  was  laid  upon  the  contending 
parties  and  a  conciliatory  message  to  each  healed 
their  mutual  wounds.  Nay,  it  is  to  him,  along 
with  Peter,  that  in  the  last  result  we  attribute 
the  recognition  by  the  narrow  Church  in  Judea 
of  the  broad  apostle  Paul.'  All  this  indicates 
a  softening  of  the  first  austerity,  an  advance  in 
the  spirit  of  toleration.  But  whence  came  this 
advance.?  Whence  proceeded  this  increased 
power  of  toleration.?  From  the  same  source 
as  his  increased  power  of  work — from  the  spirit 
of  Christian  hope. 

For,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  tol- 
eration as  well  as  work  is  facilitated  by  hope. 
I  know  that  the  opposite  is  the  common  view. 
The  popular  opinion  is  that  intolerance  is  pro- 
^  Gal.  i.  i8  and  19 


JAMES  THE  SOFTENED  235 

portionate  to  assurance.  There  are  not  wanting 
those  who  say  that  tolerance  has  advanced  side 
by  side  with  doubt  and  that  we  have  become 
less  rigid  as  we  have  become  more  unbelieving. 
I  cannot  accept  this  doctrine.  I  believe  intol- 
erance to  be  always  the  fruit  of  fear,  and  its 
opposite  to  be  always  the  fruit  of  confidence. 
Indifference  may  spring  from  unbelief ;  but  indif- 
ference has  no  more  to  do  with  toleration  than 
with  bigotry — it  is  the  absence  of  all  feeling. 
Toleration,  on  the  other  hand,  implies  a  very 
profound  feeling — a  sense  that  all  will  be  right. 
The  tolerant  man  is  the  man  who  stands  amid 
the  storm  and  refuses  by  violence  to  suppress 
the  winds  and  the  waves.  He  is  not  afraid 
of  the  winds  and  the  waves.  The  writer  of 
the  Apocalypse  says  of  the  Heavenly  City, 
'The  gates  of  it  shall  not  be  shut  at  all  by 
day,  for  there  shall  be  no  night  there.'  It  is 
so  with  every  confident  human  heart;  night- 
lessness  produces  liberality.  The  heart  which 
sees  no  shadow  throws  open  its  gates  to  all  opin- 
ions. It  fears  not  to  give  an  entrance  to  senti- 
ments not  its  own.     Its  breadth  comes  from  its 


236         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

clearness,  not  from  its  cloud.  Abiding  faith 
makes  abiding  charity.  Not  from  doubt,  not 
from  uncertainty,  does  toleration  flow.  It 
comes  from  a  sight  of  the  crystal  river  proceed- 
ing from  the  throne  of  God.  The  man  who 
has  entered  by  the  door  into  the  sheepfold  has 
liberty  to  come  out  at  pleasure  and  to  bring 
pasture  from  other  folds.  The  words  of  the 
Master  remain  valid  for  all  time,  and  cogent  for 
all  experience,  *  The  truth  shall  make  you  free. ' 

LORD,  in  these  latter  days  ours  is  the  lot 
of  James;  we  are  all  children  of  the 
autumn.  We  have  not  seen  the  springtime. 
We  were  not  among  those  who  gazed  upon  Thy 
visible  glory.  I  have  often  regretted  this.  I 
have  often  been  sad  that  I  was  *  born  out  of 
due  time.'  I  have  lamented  that  I  have  not 
looked  upon  Thy  face  or  heard  Thy  voice  or 
felt  the  clasp  of  Thy  hand — that  Thou  hast 
walked  in  my  garden  only  when  the  leaves  were 
falling.  And  to  me  in  such  mood  the  story 
of  Thy  disciple  James  brings  the  sweetest  of 
messages.     He  also  was  too  late  for  the  spring 


JAMES  THE  SOFTENED  237 

— ^too  late  by  his  own  fault.  Yet,  spite  of  his 
lateness  and  spite  of  his  blame,  his  autumn  was 
bright  and  glorious.  Thou  wert  at  his  fire- 
side, and  he  saw  Thee  not;  but  he  felt  Thy 
presence  when  the  cloud  had  received  Thee  out 
of  his  sight.  I  thank  Thee  for  that  picture  in 
the  Gallery,  O  Lord;  it  speaks  to  me.  It 
gives  me  hope,  courage,  expectation.  It  tells 
me  that  Thy  gifts  are  not  limited  to  the  morn- 
ing. I  too  may  have  an  autumn  glory.  Though 
inland  far  I  be,  though  I  have  never  seen  the 
ocean  wave,  though  I  hear  not  the  water  of  life 
breaking  on  the  shore,  though  the  breath  of 
the  brine  has  passed  me  by  and  the  sparkle  of 
the  spray  has  ignored  me,  I  too  may  find  Thee 
in  the  silent  field.  Come  to  my  autumn,  O 
Christ;  come  to  my  inland  life!  Come  to  the 
leaves  that  are  falling;  come  to  the  woods  that 
are  thinning;  come  to  the  flowers  that  are  fad- 
ing! Bring  Thine  Eden  to  my  evening.  Thy 
Nazareth  to  my  night !  Kindle  my  western  sky 
with  the  light  of  the  eastern  star!  Speak  hope 
to  my  waning  years !  Sing  songs  to  my  falter- 
ing feet!     Plant  promises  in  my  autumn  soil! 


238         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

Make  chariots  of  the  clouds  that  hide  Thee! 
Deliver  Thy  beatitudes  standing  on  the  Nebo 
of  my  declining  days!  Then  to  me,  as  to  Thy 
disciple,  there  shall  be  light  at  evening  time. 


CHAPTER  XII 

BARNABAS   THE   CHASTENED 

I  AM  now  coming  to  the  figure  of  a  great  preach- 
er of  the  early  Christian  Church — one  who  in 
his  day  enjoyed  the  rare  privilege  of  being  the 
friend  of  opposite  parties.  I  speak  of  the  man 
who  was  known  to  his  contemporaries  and  who 
is  known  to  posterity  by  the  name  of  Barnabas. 
The  name  was  not  his  own.  It  was  really  a 
term  of  endearment  meaning  *  the  son  of  conso- 
lation, '  or,  as  it  might  be  rendered,  '  the  son  of 
exhortation.'  It  signified  that  in  the  opinion  of 
men  his  preaching  of  Christian  truth  was  of  a 
most  helpful  nature,  pouring  balm  on  the  wound- 
ed and  giving  strength  to  the  weary.  The 
name  of  love  has  stuck  to  him.  It  has  painted 
him  to  all  ages  as  a  man  of  supreme  kindness, 
of  much  tolerance,   of  wide  charity — eager  for 

the  comfort  of  the  distressed  and  impressed  by 
239 


240        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

the  duties  which  he  owed  to  the  poor.  A  rich 
man  himself,  he  felt  that  a  trust  had  been 
committed  to  him;  a  preacher  of  Christ's  Gos- 
pel, he  felt  that  a  responsibility  had  been  laid 
upon  him;  a  member  of  the  prophetic  school, 
he  felt  that  he  must  help  to  hasten  the  march 
to  the  Promised  Land. 

This  is  the  second  of  the  great  Christian 
preachers  we  have  met  in  the  Gallery.  The 
first  was  John  the  Baptist.  Nothing  can  ex- 
ceed the  difference  between  these  two  repre- 
sentatives of  pulpit  eloquence.  The  Baptist  is 
immured  in  a  Jewish  desert;  Barnabas  grows 
up  in  the  free  air  of  Cyprus  Isle  and  by  the  blue 
waters  of  a  far-sounding  sea.  The  Baptist  is  all 
fire;  Barnabas  is  all  persuasion.  The  Baptist 
would  break  down  the  stubborn  strongholds; 
Barnabas  would  bind  the  broken  hearts.  The 
Baptist  proclaims  the  terrors  of  judgment;  Bar- 
nabas points  to  the  joys  of  Paradise.  The  Bap- 
tist frightens  by  the  famine  and  the  swine- 
husks;  Barnabas  tempts  by  the  ring  and  the 
robe  and  the  welcome. 

From  what  sin  was  such  a  good  man  con- 


BARNABAS  THE  CHASTENED         241 

verted? — that  is  the  question  which  rises  to  the 
Hps  as  we  gaze  on  his  face  in  the  Gallery.  Re- 
member, I  have  no  historical  information  on 
the  subject.  I  have  never  seen  the  primitive 
Barnabas;  when  he  appears  before  me,  he  is 
already  a  leader  of  men.  Is  there  any  other 
mode  of  discovering  his  past.?  I  think  there  is. 
Let  us  look  at  the  man  as  he  flashes  before  us 
in  the  Great  Gallery  at  the  height  of  his  Chris- 
tian influence  and  in  the  blaze  of  his  Christian 
fame.  Let  us  ask  if  even  in  this  white  apparel 
we  can  discover  the  remains  of  any  stain,  if 
even  on  this  fair  face  we  can  find  the  traces 
of  a  scar.  If  we  can,  you  may  be  sure  that 
we  have  reached  the  beginnings  of  the  man — 
have  put  our  hand  on  what  was  once  a  black 
mark,  have  laid  our  finger  on  what  was  origi 
nally  an  ugly  sore. 

Now,  beautiful  as  the  character  of  Barnabas 
is,  we  are  permitted  to  see  in  it  one  flaw;  and 
we  are  entitled  to  regard  this  flaw  as  a  remain- 
ing trace  of  that  which  in  the  old  days  was  his 
besetting  sin.  What  is  W.  I  should  be  dis- 
posed to  describe  it  as  a  particular  kind  of  pride 
16 


242         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

— the  pride  of  race.  I  say,  *  a  particular  kind '  of 
pride.  I  would  sharply  distinguish  it,  for  ex- 
ample, from  personal  pride  or  egotism  —  that 
kind  of  pride  to  which  the  evangelist  John  in 
his  early  days  was  subject.  The  pride  of  race 
is  compatible  with  personal  humility — it  may 
exist  side  by  side  with  a  sense  of  individual 
unworthiness.  The  Jew,  indeed,  was  apt  to 
sink  himself  in  his  country — to  become  person- 
ally humble  in  proportion  as  he  grew  patriot- 
ically proud.  Again,  I  would  distinguish  this 
pride  from  the  pride  of  wealth.  Barnabas  was 
rich,  but  he  was  not  proud  of  his  riches.  In  the 
very  first  recorded  scene  of  his  life  we  find  him 
selling  his  land  and  giving  the  money  to  the 
Church.  But  is  that  incompatible  with  the 
pride  of  race!  Would  it  be  thought  very  ex- 
travagant if  I  said  that  it  was  the  pride  of  race 
helped  him  to  do  so }  Barnabas  was  a  Levite — 
and  the  Levites,  as  individuals,  had  originally 
no  land;  they  were  forbidden  to  inherit  it, 
and  they  were  at  first  too  poor  to  purchase  it. 
If,  as  wealth  accumulated,  they  acquired  it  by 
purchase,  a  man  like  Barnabas  might  well  feel 


BARNABAS  THE  CHASTENED         243 

that  the  ancestral  glory  had  been  departed 
from — that  the  law  had  been  violated  in  spirit 
while  preserved  in  the  letter;  and  he  might  well 
resolve  that,  in  his  case  at  least,  there  should 
be  a  return  to  the  life  of  his  forefathers.  I  do 
not  disparage  his  charity — God  forbid!  I  do 
not  minimise  his  goodness  of  heart — that  was  of 
the  purest.  But  I  do  say  that  in  the  achieving 
of  this  good  thing  ancestral  pride  may  well 
have  co-operated,  and  that  his  personal  life 
may  have  been  humbled  by  the  very  conscious- 
ness of  his  national  dignity. 

Unfortunately  for  Barnabas,  it  was  not  al- 
ways to  good  things  that  this  pride  led  him. 
Perhaps  I  should  say,  *  fortunately. '  A  man 
only  learns  his  defect  in  being  chastened — in, 
finding  that  the  ways  in  which  it  leads  are  not 
ways  of  pleasantness  nor  its  paths  paths  of 
peace.  If  it  always  brought  him  into  pastures 
green,  he  might  come  to  reverence  it.  But  when 
it  pushes  him  into  quagmires,  drives  him  among 
thorns,  throws  him  down  in  stony  places, 
wanders  him  amid  labyrinths,  then  the  man 
cries,  *  There  is  something  wrong  here — some- 


244         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

thing  which  incommodes  me,  hurts  me,  retards 
me,  and  which  at  all  hazards  I  must  get  rid 
of.'  That  is  the  Christian  history  of  Barna- 
bas. It  is  the  history  of  a  man  who  has  been 
transformed  from  a  Jew  into  a  follower  of  the 
Cross,  but  who  has  carried  over  with  him  a 
remnant  of  that  old  ancestral  pride  which  was 
so  prevalent  among  his  countrymen.  It  is 
the  history  of  that  process  of  chastening  by 
which  this  remnant  of  an  old  sin  was  assailed, 
by  which  the  man  was  made  to  feel  that  the 
spirit  of  caste  was  not  the  spirit  of  consolation. 
In  no  other  light  can  we  read  with  profit  the 
life  of  Barnabas.  Looked  at  from  the  purely 
secular  side,  it  is  a  very  sad  life.  It  begins  in 
glorious  morning;  it  closes  in  a  cloudy  after- 
noon. It  opens  with  music  and  dancing;  it 
concludes  amid  the  silence.  Its  rise  is  hailed 
with  plaudits;  its  setting  is  marked  by  obscur- 
ity. Very  sad,  I  say,  from  a  secular  point  of 
view  is  this  life  of  Barnabas.  But  from  a 
Christian  point  of  view  it  reads  very  differently. 
If  you  believe  that  this  decline  is  a  chasten- 
ing,   if  you   are   convinced   that   the  branches 


BARNABAS  THE  CHASTENED         245 

lopped  from  the  tree  were  useless  branches,  if 
you  feel  that  the  adversity  was  a  revelation 
that  there  was  still  something  defective  in  this 
man's  soul,  then  will  the  afternoon  of  Barnabas 
be  better  than  his  morning  and  the  shadows 
of  his  obscurity  more  healthy  than  the  glare  of 
his  fame.  Let  us  briefly  follow  the  stream  of 
the  narrative. 

When  the  great  preacher  was  in  the  blaze 
of  his  glory,  there  came  to  Jerusalem  another 
and  a  rising  preacher  who  promised  in  the 
future  to  be  great.  It  was  young  Saul  of  Tar- 
sus, who  after  a  bitter  persecution  of  Christian- 
ity had  been  converted  to  the  faith  he  maligned 
and  had  taken  the  name  of  Paul.  There  had 
burst  upon  him  the  conviction  that  his  special 
call  was  not  to  his  own  countrymen,  but  to  the 
Gentiles;  it  was  among  these  that  the  sun  of 
his  fame  rose.  From  the  standpoint  of  the  Jew 
this  was  not  a  very  promising  beginning.  That 
a  scion  of  the  race  of  Israel  should  embrace 
a  faith  which  professed  to  be  cosmopolitan, 
was  bad  enough;  that  he  should  single  out  the 
Gentiles  for  a  special  interest,  was  maddening. 


246         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

Even  the  Jewish  Christians  were  not  prepared 
to  hail  such  an  advocate.  They  had  always  been 
accustomed  to  claim  the  largest  room;  here 
was  a  man  that  would  dispossess  them  of  their 
privilege !  Might  not  this  be  only  another  form 
of  the  persecution — an  attempt  to  destroy  Christ 
by  denying  His  special  relation  to  the  land  of 
their  fathers!  Was  this  a  man  to  be  trust- 
ed! Were  his  antecedents  such  as  made  him 
an  object  of  trust!  Had  he  not  been  a  bitter 
enemy  of  their  faith !  Was  a  change  so  sudden 
as  his  likely  to  be  real,  or,  if  real,  likely  to  be 
permanent!  Were  they  not  standing  on  the 
brink  of  a  precipice;  let  them  beware! 

And  so,  when  this  young  preacher  came  to 
Jerusalem,  he  was  received  coldly.  Men  shrank 
from  him  as  from  a  pestilence.  There  are 
times  when  nothing  can  raise  a  man  in  public 
estimation  but  the  support  of  a  powerful  hand. 
The  man  who  is  under  disgrace,  under  suspi- 
cion, under  the  ban  of  the  multitude,  will  prob- 
ably lie  there  until  he  is  lifted  by  some  one 
higher  than  the  multitude.  But  when  that 
happens,    the  influence  of  the  one  will  in  all 


BARNABAS  THE  CHASTENED         247 

likelihood  outweigh  the  influence  of  the  many. 
So  was  it  with  Paul.  For  a  time  he  lay  pros- 
trate in  obscurity — shunned  and  feared  by  his 
Christian  countrymen.  Suddenly,  a  big  hand 
touched  him,  and  two  big  arms  lifted  him  up, 
and  a  big  voice  proclaimed,  *  This  man  is  our 
brother.'  The  hand,  the  arms,  the  voice,  were 
those  of  Barnabas.  It  was  exactly  the  thing 
we  should  expect  Barnabas  to  do.  He  was  by 
nature  a  consoler.  The  sounds  which  first 
reached  his  ear  were  ever  the  plaints  of  weak- 
ness. To  be  downtrodden,  to  have  everybody 
against  you,  to  be  despised  and  rejected  by  your 
fellow-men,  was  quite  sufficient  to  place  you 
within  sight  of  the  sympathy  of  Barnabas. 
His  large  heart  took  in  the  desolate  Paul  and 
made  a  way  for  him  in  the  world.  He  led  him 
to  the  College  of  Apostles.  He  brought  him 
to  the  President  of  that  college— James  the 
Lord's  brother,  to  win  whose  influence  was 
the  key  to  the  whole  position.  He  told  of 
Paul's  zeal,  of  his  ardour,  of  his  success.  He 
lost  no  opportunity  of  bringing  his  talents  into 
notice.     When  Paul  had  gone  back  to  Tarsus 


248         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

and  Barnabas  had  gone  to  electrify  with  his 
wisdom  the  Church  at  Antioch,  the  older  preach- 
er was  sad  because  he  had  all  the  glory.  He 
wanted  the  young  man  to  share  it;  he  deter- 
mined that  he  should  share  it.  He  went  to 
Tarsus  and  brought  him  to  the  scene  of  tri- 
umph. He  gave  him  a  place  among  the  Chris- 
tian workers.  He  went  about  continually  in  his 
company,  that  men  might  say,  '  There  go  Bar- 
nabas and  Paul.'  He  knew  well  the  pvower  of 
association — how  a  tarnished  name  if  linked 
with  a  great  name  may  lose  its  tarnish;  and 
he  resolved  that  Paul  should  reap  the  advantage 
of  such  a  union. 

This  was  generous,  this  was  noble.  But 
what  if  the  association  should  be  inverted! 
What  if  in  process  of  time  the  conjunction 
should  be,  not  *  Barnabas  and  Paul, '  but  '  Paul 
and  Barnabas ' !  It  is  quite  a  common  thing  to 
see  a  mature  preacher  take  a  young  preacher 
under  his  patronage,  and  in  a  brief  space  to 
behold  the  young  man  becoming  the  leader. 
In  the  present  instance  this  actually  happened. 
For  a  while  the  name  of  Barnabas  precedes, 


BARNABAS  THE  CHASTENED         249 

and  that  of  Paul  follows;  then  there  is  a  change 
— the  order  is  '  Paul  and  Barnabas. '  The  rea- 
son is  plain.  Paul  has  revealed  himself  as  the 
greater  power.  I  do  not  say,  as  the  greater 
man.  If  Christian  greatness  be  the  spirit  of 
goodness,  Barnabas  must  ever  remain  one  of 
the  loftiest  human  souls.  But  if  Barnabas  was 
unsurpassed  as  a  man,  he  was  surpassed  as  a 
power.  It  was  not  long  before  a  superior  force 
made  itself  felt  in  the  little  band — it  was  the 
mind  of  Saul  of  Tarsus.  He  entered  as  a 
dependent;  he  ended  as  a  leader.  He  came 
to  the  front  by  the  sheer  force  of  intellect. 
His  mind  was  in  some  respects  a  contrast  to 
that  of  Barnabas.  Barnabas  was  entirely  prac- 
tical; Paul  was,  before  all  things,  speculative. 
Barnabas  was  naturally  calm;  Paul  was  gen- 
erally on  fire.  Barnabas  was  methodical;  Paul 
moved  on  wings.  Barnabas  was  an  organiser; 
Paul  was  an  inspirer.  Barnabas  was  a  man  of 
counsel;  Paul  was  a  man  of  genius.  It  was 
inevitable  that  the  stronger  force  should  in 
the  long-run  be  the  dominant  force;  it  was 
certain  from  the  outset  that  the  leading  spirit 


iSo        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

of  the  company   would  be,  not   Barnabas,  but 
Paul. 

But  the  question  which  I  ask  is  this.  What 
effect  would  this  have  upon  Barnabas?  Would 
it  touch  his  jealousy?  Never — that,  at  least, 
may  be  confidently  affirmed.  This  man  was  in- 
capable of  jealousy.  It  had  no  part  in  his  na- 
ture, which  was  essentially  free  from  individual 
self-seeking.  But  if  you  ask  me  if  it  would 
touch  his  pride  of  race,  then,  looking  to  what 
happened  afterwards,  I  must  give  a  very  dif- 
ferent answer.  I  think  this  is  the  very  element 
in  Barnabas  which  the  superior  deference  paid 
to  Paul  would  touch.  It  is  true,  Paul  was  as 
Jewish  as  himself  and  had  a  lineage  as  good 
as  his  own.  But  those  of  whom  Paul  was  ex- 
clusively the  missionary  were,  in  the  view  of 
Barnabas,  without  lineage — the  Gentiles  had  no 
descent  from  Abraham.  Why  should  one  who 
represented  the  Gentiles  alone,  be  seated  on 
a  higher  throne  than  one  who,  however  tolerant 
and  however  eager  to  make  Gentile  converts, 
had  been  originally  the  representative  of  an 
older  and  more  venerable  line — of  that  Church 


BARNABAS  THE  CHASTENED        251 

which  professed  to  be  the  latest  flower  of 
Judaism  and  the  fulfilment  of  her  Messianic 
dreams!  Was  it  right,  was  it  well,  that  it 
should  be  so!  Ought  not  the  first  branch  to 
be  the  cherished  branch !  Had  it  not  been 
deemed  in  days  of  yore  the  proudest  of  all  dig- 
nities to  belong  to  the  primitive  fold;  why  had 
the  time  come  when  men  were  turning  aside 
from  this  reverence  to  crown  one  who  served 
the  fold  of  a  stranger ! 

I  think  that,  parallel  with  his  own  declining 
influence,  this  was  the  ever-deepening  thought 
of  Barnabas.  It  was  not  a  jealous  feeling,  it 
was  not  even  a  personal  feeling;  it  was  the 
pride  of  race.  He  thought  of  himself,  not  as 
an  individual,  but  as  the  member  of  a  venerable 
community  which,  in  the  mind  even  of  the 
Gentile,  should  ever  have  the  highest  place  of 
reverence.  Yet,  impersonal  as  it  was,  the  feel- 
ing was  the  remnant  of  a  garment  which  ought 
to  have  been  discarded,  and  which,  because  it 
was  not  discarded,  became  a  source  of  discord. 
It  was  not  long  before  the  cloud  brooding  over 
the   heart    was    made   visible    in    the    sky.     It 


252         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

first  gathered  at  Perga.  John  Mark,  the  favour- 
ite nephew  of  Barnabas,  deserted  the  Gentile 
band  and  went  back  to  the  Mother  Church  at 
Jerusalem.  In  the  next  chapter  I  shall  speak 
of  him  separately,  and  I  only  allude  to  him 
now  with  a  view  to  illustrate  the  attitude  of 
Barnabas.  But  I  think  his  conduct  has  a  bear- 
ing on  the  attitude  of  Barnabas.  When  I  re- 
member that  even  after  the  separation  the 
uncle  and  nephew  still  remained  on  excellent 
terms,  when  I  recollect  how  amply  it  was  re- 
vealed in  the  future  that  the  elder  man  had  con- 
doned the  deed  of  the  younger,  I  cannot  avoid 
the  conclusion  that  in  the  mind  of  that  elder 
man  there  had  risen  a  shadow  of  displeasure 
which  had  dimmed  the  glory  of  the  morning 
,  and  spread  a  chill  through  the  once-genial  air. 
But  the  shadow  was  to  deepen,  the  chill  was 
to  increase.  By  and  by  there  was  a  conference 
summoned  at  Antioch.*  It  was  to  be  a  meet- 
ing for  purposes  of  Church-union.  All  parties 
were  to  be  represented;  all  parties  came.  The 
Gentile  Christians  were  probably  first  in  the  field 
'  So  I  interpret  Galatians  ii.  11-14. 


BARNABAS  THE  CHASTENED        253 

— ^Antioch  being  a  Gentile  city.  Then  would 
come  the  Hellenists — the  men  who,  though  now 
Grecianised,  had  either  been  originally  pure 
Jews  or  had  sprung  from  Jewish  ancestors; 
and  these  sat  down  beside  the  purely  Gentile 
converts.  Then  appeared  the  Jewish  Chris- 
tians; and  they  too  sat  down  with  the  Hellen- 
ist and  the  Jew.  At  last  came  deputies  from 
that  ecclesiastical  board  of  administration  over 
which  James  presided — men  who,  however  lib- 
eral, were  full  of  Jewish  memories  and  deep  in 
the  caste  of  nationality.  And  when  these  came, 
they  would  not  sit  down  with  the  mass.  They 
were  willing  to  make  copious  concessions  to 
the  Gentiles,  but  not  to  give  their  company; 
they  could  patronise,  but  not  fraternise.  They 
held  themselves  apart.  They  kept  in  an  iso- 
lated corner.  They  constituted  themselves  an 
inner  court  of  the  tabernacle  and  allowed  the 
party  of  Paul  to  remain  outside.  Gradually, 
an  effect  was  produced  by  this  attitude.  The 
Jewish  Christians  began  to  steal  away  from  the 
seats  they  had  taken  and  to  form  independent 
groups.     Peter    quietly    removed    himself — but 


254         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

simply  from  a  return  of  his  native  timidity. 
There  was  worse  to  follow — Barnabas  removed 
himself.  This  was  not  timidity,  nor  was  it  the 
impulse  of  the  hour.  It  must  have  been  the 
result  of  a  long  process  of  dissatisfaction. 
Barnabas  was  not  an  impulsive  man  and  he 
was  not  a  passionate  man.  What  he  did  he  did 
from  reflection — a  reflection  which,  though  bit- 
ter, was  dictated,  I  believe,  by  an  erroneous 
sense  of  duty.  I  think  it  was  really  at  him 
that  Paul  levelled  his  rebuke.  He  addressed 
Peter,  but  only  because  he  was  the  virtual 
chairman  of  the  company.  It  was  Barnabas 
that  made  him  sore.  It  was  Barnabas  that 
awakened  his  astonishment  and  indignation.  It 
was  Barnabas  that  quickened  him  to  the  frailty 
of  human  nature  and  to  the  inveterate  and 
wellnigh  invincible  weakness  that  dwells  in  the 
heart  of  man. 

At  last  the  cloud  descended  in  a  stream  of 
piteous  rain.  In  process  of  time  Paul  proposed 
that  he  and  Barnabas  should  make  a  second 
missionary  tour  over  the  ground  they  had  al- 
ready trodden.     Barnabas,  you  will  observe,  has 


BARNABAS  THE  CHASTENED        255 

now  ceased  to  be  the  suggester  of  the  Gospel 
programme;  its  ordering  has  passed  into  the 
hand  of  Paul.  Yet  the  former  leader  is  willing 
here  to  be  the  follower.  He  consents  to  go, 
provided  Paul  will  allow  John  Mark  to  accom- 
pany them.  Paul  emphatically  refuses.  Had  not 
this  man  deserted  the  standard!  Had  he  not 
preferred  another  field  to  the  field  so  dear  to 
Paul's  heart!  Were  any  family  considerations 
to  alleviate  the  blame  of  such  conduct!  John 
Mark  must  be  viewed,  not  as  the  nephew  of 
Barnabas,  but  as  a  neutral  party!  He  must  be 
treated  on  his  own  merits — not  as  the  scion  of 
an  old  house,  but  as  if  he  were  an  individual 
unbefriended,  obscure,  alone!  Judged  by  that 
test,  he  had  been  found  wanting!  There  was 
a  rent  in  his  garment  which  could  not  be 
patched  over  with  family  colours;  let  the  man 
abide  where  he  had  elected  to  be.  So  said 
Paul ;  and  it  was  the  last  straw.  For  then  the 
storm  broke.  Barnabas  retorted;  Paul  re- 
plied. The  waters  pent  up  for  months  burst 
their  barriers  and  rushed  into  the  open.  The 
quarrel  which  began  with  being  vicarious  be- 


256         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

came  personal;  mutual  recriminations  came, 
and  words  ran  high.  At  last  that  happened 
which  in  such  cases  often  happens — the  less 
capable  combatant  left  the  room  and  slammed 
the  door.  That  was  in  effect  what  Barnabas 
did.  He  threw  up  his  work.  He  abandoned 
the  mission.  He  bade  farewell  to  the  scene 
of  his  labours,  to  Paul,  to  the  comrades  of  his 
midday.  He  withdrew  into  his  shell — Cyprus. 
He  saw  the  drama  of  a  great  career  fade  before 
him;  and  his  life  which  promised  to  fill  the 
world  was  confined  within  the  limits  of  a  little 
isle.  There  was  again  a  change  in  the  Gos- 
pel partnership.  First  it  had  been  *  Barnabas 
and  Paul ' ;  then  it  was  *  Paul  and  Barnabas ' ; 
henceforth  it  was  to  be  '  Paul '  alone. 

Who  was  wrong  in  the  restilt  of  this  quar- 
rel }  Undoubtedly  Barnabas.  I  waive  altogether 
the  subject  of  John  Mark's  treatment.  It  is 
a  question  which  is  irrelevant;  and  it  ought  to 
have  been  a  question  subordinate  to  Gospel  in- 
terests. Why  should  Barnabas  have  allowed 
a  family  consideration  to  outweigh  his  work  for 
Christ!    Why  should  he  have  diminished  that 


BARNABAS  THE  CHASTENED         257 

work  for  any  discourtesy  paid  to  his  house!  I 
believe  this  last  act  of  his  was  a  final  judg- 
ment on  that  lingering  weakness  of  his  life — 
the  pride  of  race.  I  feel  sure  that  before  long 
it  was  accepted  as  such  by  himself — as  his 
revelation  of  the  pitfall  in  the  way.  Why  do  I 
think  that  he  lived  to  regret  the  step  he  had 
taken?  So  far  as  I  know,  he  and  Paul  never 
met  again;  what  makes  me  think  that  Barna- 
bas came  to  shake  hands  in  spirit.?  There  are 
two  things  which  lead  me  to  that  conclusion. 
One  is  the  fact  that,  long  years  afterwards,  an 
extravagantly  Pauline  letter  appeared  bearing 
the  name  of  Barnabas.  Its  genuineness  is  out- 
wardly very  well  attested;  internally,  the  pro- 
duction is  thought  very  unlike  him.  The  rea- 
son of  the  supposed  unlikeness  is  just  the  fact 
that  he  is  so  unfettered  in  his  treatment  of  the 
Jewish  scriptures — one  would  say  he  had  passed 
over  to  the  Gentiles.  Altogether,  I  do  not  my- 
self think  that  he  is  the  author  of  that  letter; 
but  I  do  think  that  the  fact  of  its  being  attrib- 
uted to  him  shows  where,  in  his  last  years,  his 

mind  was  known  to  lie.     It  shows  that  in  the 
17 


258         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

opinion  of  his  contemporaries  his  life,  as  it 
neared  the  setting  sun,  came  nearer  and  ever 
nearer  to  that  ocean  of  universal  love  in  which 
Paul  bathed  all  the  day — where  there  was 
neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  barbarian  nor  Roman, 
bond  nor  free — where  the  only  flag  unfurled 
was  the  flag  of  humanity. 

But  there  is  another  reason  why  I  think 
the  closing  years  of  Barnabas  were  years  of 
reconciliation.  The  nephew  came  back  to  Paul 
— came  back  under  circumstances  which  made 
the  sacrifice  all  on  his  side  and  the  gain  en- 
tirely on  Paul's.  As  the  subject  will  recur 
hereafter  I  shall  not  dwell  upon  it  here.  The 
one  point  is  that  the  nephew  did  come  back — 
came  back  at  a  time  when  love  alone  could 
have  brought  him.  And  when  we  consider  that 
after  Paul  had  rejected  his  services  he  had  gone 
to  live  with  his  uncle,  his  act  of  reconcilia- 
tion throws  back  its  light  upon  Barnabas.  It 
shows  clearly  that  the  spirit  of  Barnabas  had 
been  sweetened  by  the  years.  If  the  impression 
left  by  the  uncle  on  the  nephew's  mind  had 
oeen  one  of  bitterness,  he  would  have  shunned 


BARNABAS  THE  CHASTENED         259 

Paul  for  evermore.  We  do  not  love  those  by 
whom  a  near  and  dear  relative  has  been  stung, 
even  where  the  sting  has  been  justly  implanted. 
The  return  of  John  Mark  proves  to  my  mind  ') 
that  from  the  breast  of  Barnabas  the  sting  had 
been  long  extracted,  and  that  in  its  room  had 
been  planted  the  spirit  of  reconciliation.  It 
proves  that,  in  his  sphere  of  comparative  im- 
prisonment in  the  isle  of  Cyprus,  the  kearl  of 
Barnabas,  at  least,  had  burst  its  chain.  Though 
no  longer  he  was  aiding  Paul  with  the  hand,; 
his  soul  was  going  with  him.  His  sympathies 
were  breaking  forth  from  Cyprus  and  following 
his  companion  of  early  years — rejoicing  in  his 
triumphs,  sharing  in  his  griefs,  participating 
in  his  burdens,  joining  in  his  prayers.  The 
outward  union  to  him  personally  was  not  to  be 
restored ;  but  the  union  in  the  spirit  was  already 
complete,  and  to  his  kinsman  he  left  the  clasp- 
ing of  the  hands. 

LORD,   let  not  the  sun  go  down  upon  my 
wrath!      Life   is   too   short   for   quarrels. 
Yet  it  is  not  because  life  is  short  that  I  would 


26o        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

have  peace.  It  is  because  eternity  is  long. 
How  strange  my  old  quarrels  look  in  the  light 
of  vanished  years!  Methinks  they  will  look 
stranger  still  in  the  light  of  Thine  eternity. 
I  am  ambitious  now,  and  I  shall  be  ambitious 
then;  but  the  things  for  which  I  am  ambitious 
now  are  not  the  things  for  which  I  shall  be  am- 
bitious then.  Now  I  strive  to  get;  then  I 
shall  strive  to  give.  Now  I  seek  possession; 
then  I  shall  try  to  be  dispossessed.  Now  I 
covet  the  uppermost  seat;  then  I  shall  descend 
the  stair.  Now  I  select  the  best  robe;  then  I 
shall  choose  the  servant's  form.  I  see  Paul 
and  Barnabas  standing  before  Thy  presence, 
and  there  is  still  a  strife  between  them.  But 
the  cause  of  strife  is  changed — Paul  wishes 
Barnabas  to  be  first,  and  Barnabas  is  eager 
to  remain  second;  they  wonder  at  their  old 
quarrel  in  the  light  of  Thy  throne.  Reveal 
that  light  to  me,  O  Lord !  In  my  hour  of  quar- 
rel, in  the  hour  when  I  strive  to  be  first,  give 
me  a  glimpse  of  the  soul's  last  judgment  on 
itself — its  reversed  judgment!  Let  me  see 
Cain  rejoicing  over  the  acceptance  of  Abel's 


BARNABAS  THE  CHASTENED         261 

sacrifice!  Let  me  see  Lot  repudiating  the 
richer  share!  Let  me  see  Sarah  making  a 
home  for  Ishmael!  Let  me  see  Jacob  refusing 
his  brother's  birthright!  Let  me  see  Joseph 
exalting  his  brethren  in  his  dreams!  Let  me 
see  David  take  Uriah's  place  in  the  battle! 
Let  me  see  Jonah  intent  on  sparing  Nineveh! 
Let  me  see  Herod  exulting  in  the  sustenance 
of  the  babes  of  Bethlehem!  Then  shall  the 
light  of  eternity  arrest  the  strife  of  time;  Paul 
and  Barnabas  shall  stand  side  by  side. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

MARK   THE   STEADIED 

On  that  night  in  which  Jesus  was  betrayed, 
all  who  were  with  Him  in  the  Garden  forsook 
Him  and  fled.  But  there  was  one  who  fol- 
lowed Him  though  he  had  not  been  with  Him 
in  the  Garden.  When  the  soldiers  came  out  to 
the  public  road  leading  their  august  prisoner,  an 
obscure  young  man  did  what  the  others  had 
feared  to  do — took  a  few  steps  in  company  with 
Jesus.  It  was  only  a  few  steps — his  strength 
was  not  equal  to  the  strain;  when  the  soldiers 
laid  hands  upon  his  garment  he  left  it  in 
their  hands  and  fled  like  the  rest.  Yet  he  had 
gone  a  yard  or  two  further  than  the  men  of 
the  Garden  in  the  following  of  Jesus.  He  had  at 
least  made  a  movement  forward,  not  backward ; 
and,    by    that    short    walk,    *  he,    being   dead, 

yet  speaketh.*     I  doubt  not  that  the  recording 
262 


MARK  THE  STEADIED  263 

angel  wrote  down  his  name,  or  rather  his  name- 
lessness,  as  a  proof  that  the  obscure  may  often 
surpass  the  illustrious,  and  that  he  expressed 
the  sense  of  his  superiority  to  the  watchers  in 
the  Garden  by  affixing  the  inscription,  *  A  day*s 
march  nearer  home.' 

Now,  in  the  view  of  tradition  this  young  man 
was  Mark  the  Evangelist.  It  is  in  his  Gospel 
the  story  is  told,  and  he  has  been  thought  by 
many  to  be  speaking  of  himself.  Let  it  be  un- 
derstood, once  for  all,  that  when  I  say  '  Mark 
the  Evangelist'  I  mean  every  man  who  in  the 
New  Testament  is  mentioned  by  the  name  of 
Mark-'whether  it  be  John  Mark  or  the  Mark 
whom  Paul  summons  to  Rome  or  the  Mark  who 
resides  with  Peter  in  Babylon.  I  prejudge  no 
question  of  criticism  as  to  matters  of  fact.  But 
when  the  question  is  simply.  What  is  meant 
to  be  conveyed  by  the  artist.?  I  have  no  hesita- 
tion in  accepting  the  belief  that  in  the  design  of 
the  Gallery  they  are  all  one  and  the  same  per- 
son. My  whole  province  here  is  to  expound 
the  Gallery.  I  shall  start  therefore  with  the 
assumption    that    in    the    Gallery   of   the    New 


264        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

Testament  there  is  but  one  figure  of  the  name 
— a  figure  which  passes  through  a  variety  of 
changes  in  its  transition  from  youth  to  maturity 
— which  rises  in  the  heart  of  Jerusalem  and  is 
lost  to  view  in  the  heart  of  Rome — which  is 
known  to  its  contemporaries  as  the  nephew  of 
Barnabas  and  to  all  posterity  as  the  writer  of 
a  Gospel.  We  shall  endeavour  to  weave  into 
unity  these  various  threads  which  at  first  seem 
separate  and  independent,  and  to  present  the 
picture  of  this  man  as  the  representative  of  a 
distinct  idea  and  the  embodiment  of  a  special 
thought. 

Whether  John  Mark  be  or  be  not  the  young 
man  described  at  the  egress  from  the  Garden, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  description  suits 
him.  We  see  there  the  picture  of  a  splendid 
advance  and  a  sudden  recoil.  That  is  exactly 
the  portrait  of  Mark.  If  I  were  asked  to  indi- 
cate his  leading  feature,  I  should  define  him  as 
*  the  unsteady  man. '  Let  me  explain  precisely 
what  I  mean.  It  is  quite  a  common  thing  among 
ourselves  to  say  of  a  young  man,  *  Unfortunate- 
ly, he  is  not  steady. '     But  when  we  say  that,  we 


MARK  THE  STEADIED  265 

always  imply  one  thing — that  he  is  not  steady 
in  well-doing.  We  generally  apply  the  phrase 
to  one  who,  after  walking  awhile  in  pastures 
green,  is  found  staggering  with  drink  in  street 
and  lane.  That  is  certainly  an  interruption  of 
steadiness;  but  it  is  not  the  unsteadiness  of 
which  I  here  speak,  nor  that  which  I  attribute 
to  John  Mark.  In  the  broad  and  strict  sense  of 
the  word,  unsteadiness  has  no  more  to  do  with 
ill-doing  than  with  well-doing.  An  unsteady 
young  man  is  a  young  man  who  is  unable  to  keep 
to  one  definite  purpose — who  in  a  brief  space 
deserts  it  for  another.  So  far  as  this  quality  is 
concerned,  it  matters  nothing  whether  he  wavers 
between  the  good  and  the  bad,  between  the  bad 
and  the  bad,  or  between  the  good  and  the  good; 
each  of  these  cases  alike  implies  an  irreso- 
lute will.  Many  a  man  turns  from  one  occupa- 
tion to  another  with  perfect  honesty  and  per- 
fect conviction.  He  may  begin  by  trying  to 
write  history;  then  he  may  attempt  science; 
then  he  may  aspire  to  poetry ;  then  he  may  take 
up  the  work  of  the  artist.  We  call  such  an 
unsteady  man.     Not  one  of  the  conflicting  aims 


266         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

is  bad — they  are  each  good  and  noble.  But  the 
fact  that  in  the  man's  mind  they  are  conflict- 
ing, proves  him  to  be  unsteady.  I  do  not  think 
that  John  Mark  ever  deserted  a  good  cause  for 
a  bad;  the  point  is  that  he  was  constantly  de- 
serting one  cause  for  another.  This  is  why  I 
call  him  *  Mark  the  unsteady. '  He  stands  as 
a  representative  of  the  man  who  does  not  know 
his  own  mind,  the  unstable  man,  the^wavering 
man.  His  impulses  are  all  for  good;  but  they 
are  not  long  directed  toward  the  same  good;  it 
is  the  blue  to-day,  the  green  to-morrow,  the 
red  next  day.  He  never  sinks  to  the  degraded ; 
but  he  has  no  permanent  interest  in  any  particu- 
lar cause  which  is  sublime. 

When  we  first  meet  the  name  of  John  Mark, 
he  is  already  a  Christian.  He  was  in  an  ad- 
mirable atmosphere  for  becoming  a  Christian. 
He  belonged  to  a  Christian  family.  His  uncle 
was  Barnabas.  His  mother  was  Mary  of  Jeru- 
salem— a  woman  of  worldly  means  and  unworld- 
ly piety.  Her  house  in  the  Jewish  metropolis 
was  a  place  of  rendezvous — a  salon  where  met 
from   time   to   time   the   leaders   of    the   faith. 


MARK  THE  STEADIED  267 

Sometimes  it  was  for  purposes  of  prayer,  some- 
times for  exhortation,  sometimes  for  social  in- 
tercourse. Amid  the  amenities  of  this  circle 
young  Mark  enjoyed  great  advantages;  he 
learned  the  nature  of  Christianity  almost  from 
the  fountainhead,  and  he  saw  it  represented  in 
its  adaptation  to  varied  minds.  The  man  whom 
he  first  met  was  the  man  who  bound  the  earli- 
est cord  round  his  heart;  it  was  Simon  Peter. 
The  Master  had  given  to  Peter  the  key  to  many 
human  doors;  and  the  door  of  Mark's  spirit 
opened  to  him  of  its  own  accord.  There  was 
something  in  the  natures  of  these  men  which 
drew  them  into  harmony.  They  had  both  natu- 
rally the  same  mental  disease — a  wavering  will. 
The  causes  of  the  malady  were  of  course  very 
different.  Peter  was  originally  timid  and  was 
frightened  by  the  first  cloud;  Mark  was  con- 
stitutionally volatile  and  was  drawn  elsewhere 
by  the  second  sunbeam.  Yet  the  fact  of  a  com- 
mon disease  made  a  common  sympathy,  while 
the  difference  of  its  cause  created  a  power  of 
mutual  help.  If  the  wavering  in  each  case  had 
come  from  the  same  source,   Peter  and  Mark 


268         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

might  have  been  sympathisers;  but  they  never 
could  have  been  helpers,  for  mutual  help  de- 
mands that  each  should  possess  an  element  which 
is  lacking  in  the  other.  The  blended  likeness 
and  difference  of  these  men  united  them  on 
two  sides. 

Then,  by  and  by,  there  came  to  Jerusalem 
the  man  who  was  to  become  the  other  figure 
of  the  apostolic  age — Paul  of  Tarsus.  He  was 
brought  by  Barnabas  as  a  fellow-worker  in  the 
relieving  of  a  great  famine.  Here  Mark  for 
the  first  time  met  Paul.  I  do  not  think  the  man 
of  Tarsus  made  as  much  impression  upon  him  as 
Peter  had  done.  There  was  little  resemblance 
in  their  characters.  If  Mark  was  wavering, 
Paul  was  inflexible.  If  Mark  had  many  objects 
of  attraction,  Paul  had  only  one.  If  Mark  was 
drawn  aside  by  passing  sentiment,  Paul  was 
bound  by  the  chain  of  a  permanent  love.  Nor 
do  I  think  that  at  this  stage  the  cause  of  Paul 
was  the  cause  of  Mark.  I  believe  that  origi- 
nally the  heart  of  the  latter  was  not  with  the 
Gentiles,  but  with  the  Jews.  It  is  not  often  that 
the  younger  generation  is  less  liberal  than  the 


MARK  THE  STEADIED  269 

older;  but  I  think  Mark  was  far  more  con- 
servative than  his  uncle  Barnabas.  They  had 
lived  in  a  different  environment.  Barnabas  had 
dwelt  in  the  comparatively  free  air  of  Cyprus, 
and  had  seen  many  phases  of  many  minds. 
He  was  in  the  position  of  the  man  of  travel. 
He  had  come  to  find  that  there  must  be  allowed 
a  certain  amount  of  latitude  for  human  thought, 
and  that  we  cannot  expect  all  men  to  be  shaped 
in  one  mould.  Mark,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
a  child  of  Jerusalem.  With  Jerusalem  were 
linked  his  earliest,  and  therefore  his  fondest, 
associations.  It  was  the  home  of  his  happiest 
years,  the  scene  of  his  most  cherished  memo- 
ries. Religion  itself  had  come  to  him  there, 
and  had  come  in  a  joyous  dress — wreathed  with 
social  interest  and  decked  with  colours  gay. 
Jerusalem  was  very  dear  to  Mark,  and  anything 
that  disparaged  her,  anything  that  would  tend 
to  put  her  in  the  second  place,  must  have  been 
strongly  distasteful  to  him.  The  enthusiasm  for 
the  Gentile  world  was  not  to  him  the  most  joy- 
ful of  sounds. 

Nevertheless,    Barnabas    requested    that    his 


270        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

nephew  should  accompany  him  in  his  mission- 
ary tour  with  Paul.  I  think  the  proposal  came 
from  Barnabas.  I  think  he  was  afraid  that 
the  young  man  was  getting  inured  to  a  narrow 
atmosphere.  If  Paul^hdid.  made  the  request 
it  is  probable  it  would  have  been  refused. 
But  when  it  came  from  the  uncle,  when  it  was 
dictated  by  solicitude  for  Mark's  mental  enlarge- 
ment, when  it  was  an  appeal  for  companionship 
by  one  for  whom  he  cherished  an  affection  and 
who  cherished  an  affection  for  him,  it  spoke 
to  impulses  outside  of  religion  and  impulses 
which  were  fitted  to  strike  the  youthful  mind. 
Mark  said,  *  I  will  go. ' 

Accordingly,  when  Paul  and  Barnabas  depart- 
ed from  Jerusalem  they  took  Mark  with  them. 
It  was  a  very  unpromising  beginning  for  a  mis- 
sionary career.  No  man  should  enter  on  such 
a  career  with  any  motive  less  than  zeal  for  the 
cause.  Every  step  of  Mark's  journey  increased 
his  homesick  longing  for  the  Christian  Church 
of  Jerusalem.  I  know  that  his  discontent  has 
been  attributed  to  lower  motives.  Men  have 
spoken  of  him  as  lazy,  idle,  somnolent,  unwill- 


MARK  THE  STEADIED 


271 


ing  to  put  his  hand  to  the  plough  lest  it  should 
be  soiled,  averse  to  expose  his  life  lest  it  should 
be  sacrificed.  A  more  ungenerous  verdict  was 
never  pronounced — it  is  refuted  by  his  whole 
life.  Mark  was  not  a  selfish  man ;  he  was  never 
an  idle  man;  in  his  later  years  he  was  the  re- 
verse of  a  timid  man — and  these  are  the  only 
years  when  he  had  a  real  chance  of  displaying 
himself.  His  bane  was  that  he  was  a  man  of 
two  ideas — not  of  one.  His  was  not  a  struggle 
between  the  love  of  action  and  the  love  of  ease. 
It  was  a  struggle  with  the  temptation  to  act 
in  different  ways  either  of  which  would  in  itself 
be  good.  It  was  in  the  present  instance  a 
struggle  whether  to  abide  with  Paul  or  to  re- 
turn to  Peter.  A  man  of  steady  will  would  have 
battled  down  the  temptation  to  return.  But 
Jerusalem  the  Golden,  the  Jerusalem  of  his 
youth,  the  Jerusalem  of  his  earliest  joys,  was 
too  strong  for  him ;  it  kept  a  corner  in  his  heart 
and  would  not  let  him  go. 

So,  when  the  little  company  arrived  at  Per- 
^,  Mark  suddenly  disappeared.  I  know  not  in 
what  manner  he  effected  his  departure — whether 


272         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

he  simply  abandoned  them  or  made  an  excuse 
for  absence  or  wrote  a  respectful  letter  of  resig- 
nation. It  may  be  safely  said  that  nothing 
could  confer  dignity  on  his  departure.  Paul 
could  only  receive  it  as  a  slight  to  the  cause 
which  was  dearest  to  his  heart — a  slight  all  the 
more  impressive  and  all  the  more  stinging  be- 
cause it  came  from  the  nephew  of  the  very  man 
who  had  been  his  patron  in  the  hour  of  need; 
it  was  apt  to  make  men  say,  *  If  Paul's  own 
friends  desert  him,  we  need  not  wonder  at  what 
his  enemies  do.'  Mark  went  back  to  Jerusa- 
lem. He  was  probably  received  with  contempt 
— as  a  rolling  stone.  A  rolling  stone  he  cer- 
tainly was;  but  it  was  not  rolling  downhill. 
His  was  really  a  case  of  religious  homesickness. 
He  was  attached  to  the  Church  of  his  fathers. 
Their  city  was  to  him  the  sacred  city,  their  tem- 
ple the  model  and  pattern  of  the  house  of  God. 
His  heart  could  not  beat  in  unison  with  a  move- 
ment which  centred  round  other  cities  and  bowed 
the  knee  at  other  shrines.  He  was  jealous  for 
the  place  of  his  birth,  for  the  school  of  his  relig- 
ious training,  for  the  associations  and  memories 


MARK  THE  STEADIED  273 

of  his  youth;  and  he  was  unwilling  to  bear  a 
part  in  the  injuring  of  these.  There  was  an  ele- 
ment of  true  loyalty  in  the  weakness  of  John 
Mark. 

By  and  by  something  happened  at  Jerusalem 
which  modified  Mark's  view.  A  conciliatory 
council  was  held  there  to  soften  the  differences 
between  Jews  and  Gentiles.  As  the  result  of 
that  council  the  Church  at  Jerusalem  gave  a 
patronising  recognition  to  the  Gentiles.  Phleg- 
matic and  unaccompanied  with  enthu!iasm  as 
the  recognition  was,  it  suggested  to  Mark  the 
possibility  of  another  rolling  movement  on  his 
part.  Was  not  Paul  put  in  a  new  light  by  this 
act  of  the  council!  Had  not  the  Mother 
Church  taken  him  under  her  wing!  Had  not 
Jerusalem  given  him  her  blessing!  Could  not 
Mark  now  offer  his  services  to  Paul  without 
being  disloyal  to  Jerusalem!  On  the  former 
occasion  he  had  felt  like  a  traitor  to  the  past; 
but  surely  that  reproach  could  not  exist  now! 
Might  he  not  go  back  to  Paul  and  say,  *  My 
Church  has  publicly  recognised  the  rights  of 

the  Gentiles;    I  may  with  a  clear  conscience 
i8 


274         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

return  to  you ' !  And  then,  his  uncle  Barnabas 
was  pleading  with  him  to  come  back.  He 
missed  the  nephew's  company.  His  relations 
with  Paul  had  become  somewhat  strained.  He 
had  begun  to  feel  alone  and  unbefriended.  He 
wanted  a  kinsman  —  some  one  to  whom  he 
could  pour  out  his  heart.  When  Mark  consid- 
ered all  these  things  he  was  disposed  to  return. 
He  allowed  Barnabas  to  make  the  proposal  to 
Paul.  But  Paul  refused  to  receive  him — and 
from  his  point  of  view  he  may  be  excused  in 
so  doing.  His  strong  and  inflexible  nature  could 
not  respect  rolling  stones.  He  was  unwilling 
to  admit  into  his  band  of  workers  a  weak  and 
wavering  soul.  Mark  had  recently  deserted 
his  cause;  why  in  so  brief  a  space  should  he 
change  his  mind  again!  Was  such  a  rapid  re- 
conversion any  compliment  to  that  cause,  or 
did  it  give  any  security  for  permanent  ad- 
herence! Would  not  the  enrolling  of  such  a 
man  be  only  the  introducing  into  the  ranks  of 
an  element  of  weakness  and  the  sowing  of  un- 
promising seed  in  a  healthy  and  fertile  field! 
But  if  the  modern  spectator  can  excuse  Paul, 


MARK  THE  STEADIED  275 

Barnabas  could  not;  he  threw  up  the  cause 
and  retired  to  Cyprus.  He  did  not  go  alone. 
He  asked  Mark  to  accompany  him  —  which 
shows  that  his  wish  to  bring  him  back  had 
been  rather  personal  than  ecclesiastical.  And 
here  the  unfortunate  Mark  again  changes  his 
front.  He  goes  to  Cyprus.  He  had  been  a 
Jew;  he  had  been  a  Jewish  Christian;  he 
had  been  a  Gentile  Christian;  he  had  been  a 
Jewish  Christian  once  more;  he  was  well- 
nigh  becoming  a  Gentile  Christian  once  more. 
Thwarted  in  this  last  resolve,  what  does  he  be- 
come now.?  What  name  should  we  give  to  him 
in  Cyprus.''  I  would  call  him  the  companion  to 
a  good  man.  I  think  he  went  neither  for  Jew 
nor  Gentile,  but  purely  for  the  sake  of  Barnabas. 
I  have  heard  men  sneer  at  this  mission  to  Cy- 
prus. I  have  seen  Christian  writers  point  with 
scorn  to  the  narrow  sphere  he  had  chosen  for 
his  labours  and  the  life  of  laziness  he  had 
purchased  for  his  soul.  It  is  an  ungenerous 
sneer.  The  mission  of  Mark  to  Cyprus  was  not 
a  religious  mission.  It  was  a  mission  of  human 
sympathy — sympathy  for  a  private  friend.     He 


276        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

went  to  comfort  the  grief  and  cheer  the  solitude 
of  one  who  had  always  loved  and  befriended 
him  and  whose  very  sorrow  had  been  incurred 
in  the  effort  to  do  him  service.  You  may  call 
his  journey  to  Cyprus  another  movement  of 
the  stone;  yet  it  was  a  movement  not  toward 
worldly  pleasure  but  toward  Christian  sacrifice. 

How  long  Mark  remained  in  Cyprus  I  do 
not  know — it  may  have  been  for  years.  In 
any  case,  it  must  have  been  a  time  of  much 
benefit,  moral  and  intellectual.  He  met  the 
Gentiles  in  a  field  where  there  was  no  conflict 
— the  life  of  social  intercourse.  He  was  able 
to  look  at  them  as  men  and  women  bearing  a 
common  burden — to  view  them  as  fellow-citi- 
zens apart  from  creed,  apart  from  sect,  apart 
from  church-membership,  and  to  feel  that  the 
soul  of  man  was  larger  than  his  systems.  I 
doubt  not  that  the  days  of  Mark  in  Cyprus 
did  him  good. 

But  there  was  coming  to  this  man  a  greater 
good  still — an  event  which  was  to  be  the  turn- 
ing-point of  his  life.  There  came  to  him  one 
day  a  call  from  across  the  sea;    and  the  voice 


MARK  THE  STEADIED  277 

that  uttered  it  was  that  of  the  man  who  had 
attracted  his  youthful  years — Simon  Peter.  He 
called  on  Mark  to  help  him — not  as  a  mission- 
ary, but  as  a  secretary.  The  former  fisher- 
man of  Galilee  knew  well  the  advantage  he 
would  reap  from  superior  culture.  He  knew 
that  Mark  had  received  that  culture — that  he 
had  possessed  from  youth  all  the  opportunities 
which  wealth  can  bring.  There  had  been  no 
hindrance  to  his  education.  He  had  enjoyed  the 
influences  of  social  refinement  and  the  ameni- 
ties of  a  happy  home.  He  had  not  been  tossed 
upon  the  sea  as  he  himself  had  been,  but  had 
been  allowed  to  pitch  his  tent  upon  the  hill. 
His  superior  leisure  had  given  him  superior 
learning.  Peter  wanted  such  a  man  —  one  who 
could  clothe  his  thoughts  and  interpret  them  to 
the  people.  Mark  heard  his  cry  for  help,  and 
he  said,  '  I  will  go. '  Barnabas  himself  must 
have  urged  him  to  go.  All  through  his  life 
no  such  suitable  opening  had  appeared  for 
John  Mark.  It  was  a  place  made  for  him,  cut 
out  for  him,  fitted  to  bring  into  bold  relief  all 
that  was  best  and  truest  and  noblest  within  him, 


278         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

and  to  waken  that  which  had  long  been  asleep 
in  his  heart — a  definite  purpose  in  living. 

Little  did  John  Mark  know  where  in  this 
new  occupation  his  opening  was  to  lie.  It  was 
not  in  having  a  fixed  profession.  It  was  not 
in  being  thrown  into  direct  contact  with  the 
apostles.  It  was  not  even  in  the  companion- 
ship with  so  great  a  soul  as  Peter.  It  was  in 
a  greater  companionship — that  of  Christ  Him- 
self. Mark  received  from  Peter  the  notes  of 
a  Gospel.  When  he  put  these  together  there 
emerged  a  portrait  of  the  Master  —  the  first 
portrait  of  the  Master  that  was  ever  presented 
to  the  human  eye.  As  Mark  gazed  upon  the 
unexpected  result  of  his  own  handiwork,  his 
spirit  was  stirred  within  him.  What  did  he 
see  ?  The  one  thing  he  needed  to  see  —  an 
aim  in  life.  Hitherto  he  had  wavered  between 
Jew  and  Gentile.  As  he  looked  into  that  face, 
Jew  and  Gentile  alike  vanished,  and  there  shone 
out  only  one  form  —  Man.  Jerusalem  faded ; 
Antioch  faded ;  and  over  the  blank  spaces  there 
rose  the  republic  of  human  souls.  As  he  gazed 
upon    that    portrait    there    dawned    on    him    a 


MARK  THE  STEADIED  279 

great  thought — the  idea  that  what  gave  men 
equal  rights  was  neither  Judaism  nor  Gentil- 
ism,  but  the  common  cross  of  humanity.  What 
was  that  earliest  portrait  of  the  Master  which 
we  now  call  the  Gospel  of  Mark?  It  was  the 
picture  which  delineated  a  great  physician — a 
healer  of  human  woes.  It  was  the  portrait  of 
a  soul  that  had  put  deeds  in  the  place  of  words 
— that  felt  life  was  too  short  for  verbal  contro- 
versy and  must  be  approached  by  the  work  of 
the  hand.  It  was  the  depicting  of  one  who 
did  not  ask  at  the  outset,    'Are  you  a  Jew.?' 

*  Are  you  a  Gentile  ? '  *  Are  you  a  worshipper 
of  any  kind } '  but  whose  primary  question  was, 

*  Have  you  anything  requiring  to  be  healed  ? ' 

And  this  portrait  woke  Mark's  soul.  There 
rose  within  him  a  great  resolve — he  would  fo/~ 
low  that  picture  of  the  Master.  He  would 
stand  aside  in  the  question  between  Gentile 
and  Jew;  he  would  devote  himself  to  a  larger 
problem.  He  would  become  a  sick-nurse  to 
humanity,  a  minister  to  human  need.  And  by 
and  by  there  occurred  a  chance  for  testing  his 
resolve.     His  old  antagonist  Paul  came  to  the 


28o        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

depths  of  sorrow.  His  splendid  missionary 
career  was  at  last  interrupted;  the  bird  was 
arrested  in  its  flight,  and  caged.  The  apos- 
tle, trapped  by  his  Jewish  countrymen,  lan- 
guished within  a  prison  at  Caesarea.  A 
thought  comes  to  Mark.  Was  not  this  the 
place  in  which  the  definite  purpose  of  his  life 
should  begin!  Could  there  be  a  better  time 
for  indecision  to  vanish  and  wavering  to  cease! 
He  had  determined  to  follow  the  healing  foot- 
steps of  Jesus;  were  they  not  leading  him  first 
of  all  to  Caesarea  to  help  his  opponent  of  for- 
mer days!  Paul  had  doubted  the  genuineness 
of  his  Gentilism;  would  he  doubt  the  genuine- 
ness of  his  humanity !  If  he  went  to  him  in  his 
poverty,  in  his  loneliness,  in  his  hour  of  enforced 
inaction  —  if  he  brought  wealth  to  supply  his 
needs,  fellowship  to  meet  his  solitude,  a  min- 
istrant  hand  to  assist  his  weariness — would  not 
Paul  at  last  believe  in  him !  Mark  resolves  that 
he  will  yield  to  Paul's  adversity  the  homage 
j  which  he  had  refused  to  his  prosperity,  and 
I  that  he  will  lend  to  his  hours  of  weakness  the 
service  of  a  slave  to  his  master. 


MARK  THE  STEADIED  281 

We  know  how  gloriously  his  promise  was 
fulfilled;  there  was  no  faltering,  no  paltering, 
no  altering,  any  more.  He  came  to  the  prison 
at  Caesarea  and  supplicated  permission  to  serve. 
I  know  not  how  Paul  received  him.  Perhaps 
at  first  the  gifts  appeared  anonymously — Paul 
may  have  been  beguiled  into  love.  But  I  know 
that  ere  long  he  was  conscious  of  Mark's  no- 
bleness —  conscious  that  at  last  a  steady  race 
had  begun.  Almost  the  latest  act  of  his  life 
was  to  look  back  on  these  days  at  Caesarea,  and 
record  his  sense  of  how  profitable  this  man's 
ministration  had  been.  He  gives  him  his 
word  of  recommendation — he  asks  the  Church 
to  receive  him.  Nay,  there  is  something  more 
touching  still.  When  the  apostle's  last  day  is 
drawing  near,  when  death  stares  him  in  the  face, 
when  most  of  the  companions  of  his  former 
years  have  fled,  who  is  it  that  he  asks  for,  who 
is  it  that  he  longs  to  see.?  It  is  Mark.  I  can 
.imagine  no  greater  compliment  paid  by  man  to 
man.  I  should  think  it  worth  while  to  be  re- 
jected a  hundred  times  if  as  a  recompense  I 
received    such  an  approach  at  last.     Did   Mark 


282         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

go?  I  feel  sure  he  did.  I  have  no  doubt  that 
he  went  with  Timothy  to  Rome  to  cheer  Paul's 
latest  hours;  and  I  believe  that  he  remained 
there  to  lead  the  ambulance  corps  of  human- 
ity. There,  not  inappropriately,  we  shall  leave 
him — in  the  city  of  the  steadfast,  in  the  place 
where  of  all  others  men  had  learned  the  wis- 
dom of  inflexible  tenacity.  That  city  will  con- 
firm him  in  his  acquired  robustness,  and  he 
will  impart  to  her  somewhat  of  his  original  soft- 
ness; and  it  may  be  that  from  this  union  there 
shall  at  length  emerge  a  beautiful  and  harmoni- 
ous blend. 

LORD,  I  should  like  to  join  the  ambulance 
corps  of  humanity.  I  would  rather  be 
a  member  of  that  band  than  either  a  Gentile 
or  a  Jew.  Thou  art  leading  our  age  where 
Mark  was  led — to  the  bearing  of  the  cross. 
Never  has  Thy  portrait  been  studied  so  deeply 
as  now.  In  past  days  we  studied  other  por- 
traits, and  therefore  we  aspired  to  other  things 
than  the  human.  We  gazed  on  Paul  and  cried, 
*  Great  is  the  mystery  of  Godhead  ! '     We  gazed 


MARK  THE  STEADIED  283 

on  Peter  and  said,  '  Show  us  the  things  which 
the  angels  desire  to  look  into ! '  We  gazed  on 
John  and  exclaimed,  '  Let  us  see  the  city  of 
gold!'  We  gazed  on  Matthew  and  breathed 
the  prayer,  '  Unroll  the  book  of  prophecy ! ' 
These  were  aspirings  after  heave7t.  But  it  is 
only  now  that  we  have  begun  to  aspire  after 
earth,  have  desired  to  see  its  mysteries  un- 
veiled. It  is  only  in  gazing  into  Thy  face  that 
we  have  seen  the  face  of  our  brother-man. 
Thou  hast  kept  the  best  wine  till  the  last,  O 
Lord.  I  had  been  long  seeking  to  pierce  che 
clouds  of  nature,  but  I  had  never  pierced  the 
cloud  in  my  brother's  soul — never  till  I  saw 
Thee.  Now  there  has  come  to  me  a  new  evan- 
gel, nay,  the  old  misread  evangel.  Thou  hast 
said  to  my  soul,  '  Why  standest  thou  gazing  up 
into  heaven!  the  Son  of  Man  is  coming  down 
from  heaven  to  earth.'  I  asked  Thee  to  open 
the  sky ;  Thou  hast  said,  *  Open  the  prison 
doors ! '  I  asked  Thee  for  a  tabernacle  on  the 
mount ;  Thou  hast  said,  '  Heal  the  demoniac 
on  the  plain ! '  I  asked  Thee  for  a  sign  of  Thy 
coming;     Thou   hast   said,    'It   will   be   man's 


284         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

humanity  to  man.'  I  asked  Thee  how  I 
should  learn  Thy  doctrine;  Thou  hast  said, 
'  Feed  my  sheep ! '  I  asked  for  a  gate  into  the 
temple;  Thou  hast  pointed  to  a  door  in  the 
hospital.  I  asked  for  Thy  robing-room;  Thou 
hast  shown  me  an  orphanage  home.  I  asked 
to  drink  of  Thy  cup;  Thou  hast  sent  me  to 
scenes  of  misery.  I  asked  to  share  Thy  glory; 
Thou  hast  called  me  to  restore  one  fallen 
soul.  The  service  to  my  Father  has  become 
the  service  to  my  brother;  give  me  a  place,  O 
Lord,  in  earth's  ambulance  corps! 


CHAPTER  XIV 

CORNELIUS   THE   TRANSPLANTED 

It  may  seem  strange  that  I  should  place  the 
name  of  Cornelius  after  those  of  Barnabas  and 
Mark.  Cornelius  only  figures  at  the  dawn  of 
the  apostolic  age,  Barnabas  and  Mark  survive 
into  its  midday;  why  fall  back  from  a  later  to 
an  earlier  life?  It  is  because  in  these  pages  I 
have  followed  a  definite  principle  of  chronol- 
ogy. I  have  placed  first  in  order  of  time  those 
figures  of  the  Gallery  which  came  into  clear 
and  undoubted  contact  with  the  earthly  life  of 
the  Master — Peter,  John,  Thomas,  and  the  like. 
Next  in  order  of  time  I  have  placed  the  two 
men  whose  contact  with  the  earthly  Christ  is 
doubtful — Barnabas  and  Mark.  The  former 
is  said  to  have  been  one  of  the  seventy  to 
whom    Christ   personally   intrusted   a   mission; 

the  latter,   as  I  have  already  stated,  has  been 
285 


286         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

traditionally  identified  with  the  young  man  who 
followed  Jesus  from  the  Garden.  These,  how- 
ever, are  matters  of  conjecture,  and  so  I  have 
given  to  the  subjects  of  them  a  later  place. 
After  these  I  have  put  those  who  neither  in 
history  nor  in  tradition  have  been  enrolled  amid 
the  band  which  in  His  human  form  beheld 
the  Lord.  Foremost  among  these  in  point  of 
time  is  the  man  Cornelius.  He  is  not  a  Jew- 
ish figure;  he  is  not  even  an  Eastern  figure. 
He  is  a  man  of  the  West,  a  European,  a 
Roman.  He  is  not  only  separated  from  out- 
ward contact  with  Jestis ;  he  is  separated  from 
outward  contact  with  the  environment  of  Je- 
sus. His  life  has  been  spent  in  war — in  the 
service  of  an  empire  whose  aims  were  not 
Messianic.  He  had  breathed  the  atmosphere 
of  the  camp  rather  than  the  air  of  Calvary, 
had  heard,  not  sermons  on  the  mount,  but 
ribald  jests  on  the  highway.  Cornelius  was  the 
child  of  an  empire  which  had  passed  its  merid- 
ian glory — the  empire  of  Tiberius,  the  empire 
of  Caligula,  the  empire  which  had  lost  the  form 
of  sound  words  and  the  semblance  of  good  deeds. 


CORNELIUS  THE  TRANSPLANTED   287 

He  had  not  been  born  within  the  compass  of 
church  bells. 

By  and  by  this  man,  as  the  captain  of  a  regi- 
ment, was  ordered  to  Caesarea.  He  was  sent 
there  to  represent  the  fact  of  Roman  conquest, 
to  exercise  a  military  surveillance  over  the  dis- 
trict. But,  all  the  time  that  he  was  keeping 
military  watch  over  Judea,  Judea  kept  moral 
watch  over  him.  He  came  to  represent  Rome's 
conquest  of  Israel;  he  ended  by  representing 
Israel's  conquest  of  Rome.  He  was  converted 
by  his  own  dependents — converted  to  the  faith 
of  Judaism.  His  nature  became  transformed. 
The  dissolute  man  grew  devout.  The  proud 
man  became  prayerful.  The  grasping  man  be- 
gan to  lavish  gratuities.  The  undomesticated 
man  took  up  the  duties  of  a  household,  and  spe- 
cially the  care  of  its  religious  life.  Cornelius 
was  conquered  by  the  moral  power  of  Judaism. 
There  are  souls  that  in  their  ascent  to  Chris- 
tianity pass  first  through  the  faith  of  their 
ancestors.  Cornelius  was  one  of  these.  He  be- 
gan as  a  Pagan,  the  worshipper  of  many  gods. 
Then  he  rose  to  be  a  Jew,  the  worshipper  of 


288         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

one  God  of  righteousness.  Another  step  re^ 
mained  to  make  him  perfect ;  he  had  to  become 
a  Christian,  the  worshipper  of  a  God  of  grace. 
We  are  disposed,  indeed,  to  wonder  what 
was  lacking  to  CorneUus.  His  Jewish  faith  is 
described  in  such  glowing  colours  that  we  are 
tempted  to  ask  what  more  could  be  desired. 
A  man  of  devoutness,  a  man  of  prayer,  a  man 
of  domestic  virtue,  a  man  of  public  charity — 
has  he  not  already  done  everything  which  a 
Christian  can  do!  Perhaps.  A  boy  who  has 
been  through  the  school  methods  of  arithmetic 
can  do  everything  in  matters  of  calculation  that 
an  office-clerk  can  do.  But  he  will  not  do  it 
in  the  same  manner,  nor  with  the  same  quick- 
ness, and  therefore  he  could  not  be  an  office- 
clerk.  Before  he  can  become  that,  he  must 
get  rid  of  his  school  method,  and  learn  a  short 
road  to  the  goal.  The  most  perfect  penmanship 
will  not  fit  a  man  to  be  a  reporter.  In  process 
of  time  he  could  by  ordinary  penmanship  do  all 
that  the  reporter  does;  but  the  process  of  time 
is  just  what  is  denied  to  him ;  there  is  required 
a  shorthand  process.     That  is  what  Cornelius 


CORNELIUS  THE  TRANSPLANTED   289 

needed.  He  could  calculate  splendidly,  he 
could  write  beautifully;  but  he  could  do  both 
only  by  school  methods.  He  wanted  a  means 
of  coming  to  the  goal  with  more  ease  and  with 
more  rapidity — of  reaching  the  summit  of  the 
hill,  not  by  an  act  of  laborious  cHmbing,  but 
by  the  movement  of  an  eagle's  wing.  This 
was  the  new  stage  that  was  coming  to  Cornelius. 
The  strange  thing  is  that  in  teaching  Corne- 
lius His  own  new  evangel,  God  is  represented 
in  this  picture  as  following  the  old  -  school 
method.  The  man  is  to  be  taught  a  quick  way 
of  reaching  heaven;  but  he  is  taught  it  in  a 
most  cumbrous,  lengthy,  and  laborious  manner. 
Have  you  ever  considered  the  singular  charac- 
ter of  that  picture  in  the  tenth  chapter  of 
Acts.  The  man  Cornelius  is  about  to  receive 
the  Holy  Spirit — the  most  unfettered  gift  which 
the  Divine  can  bestow  upon  the  human.  Why 
does  it  not  come  unfettered  to  Cornelius.^  We 
should  expect  that  it  would  have  rushed  into 
his  soul  like  a  flash  of  sunshine,  like  a  breath  of 
morning.     Does  it.?    Listen  to  the  lengthened 

process!    There  comes  to  him  a  shining  angel 
19 


290        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

and  tells  him  that  he  is  under  the  favour  of 
heaven.  He  bids  Cornelius  send  men  to  Joppa 
to  summon  Simon  Peter,  and  gives  directions 
for  finding  his  lodging.  Three  men  are  sent 
on  a  day's  journey  to  invite  the  apostle  to  Joppa 
— two  domestics  of  Cornelius  and  a  soldier  who 
waited  on  him.  One  would  think  the  Divine 
would  have  quicker  modes  of  telegraphy!  In 
the  meantime,  Peter  also  is  prepared  by  a  vis- 
ion for  the  receiving  of  a  Gentile  convert,  is 
told  to  count  nothing  common  or  unclean.  One 
asks,  What  need  of  this  preparation — ought  he 
not  to  have  known  that  in  the  seed  of  Abraham 
all  nations  were  to  be  blessed !  Then  Peter  is 
wakened  from  his  dream  by  a  knocking  at  the 
door,  and  the  three  messengers  of  Cornelius  en- 
ter. They  tell  their  story,  and  abide  the  whole 
day.  Next  morning  they  set  out  for  Caesarea, 
accompanied  by  Peter  and  a  retinue  of  his 
fellow-Christians;  and  it  is  the  following  day 
before  they  arrive.  Cornelius,  too,  has  gath- 
ered to  meet  Peter  a  company  of  his  kinsmen. 
He  falls  down  before  the  apostle  in  an  attitude 
of  worship — showing  that  the  Paganism  was  not 


CORNELIUS  THE  TRANSPLANTED   291 

quite  dead  in  his  nature.  Peter  raises  him  up 
and  bids  him  transfer  his  homage  to  Jesus. 
Then  follows  a  sermon  on  the  life  and  work  of 
Jesus;  and,  as  the  words  strike  the  ear,  the 
gift  of  God  at  last  descends,  and  Cornelius  and 
his  whole  company  are  filled  with  the  Holy 
Ghost. 

Now,   to  what  purpose  is  this  waste!    Why 
extend  over  three  days  an  act  that  might  have 
been  momentary !    Why  use  so  much  machinery 
for  a  deed  that  might  have  been  spontaneous! 
The  Divine  Spirit  required  no  human  message 
to  Joppa— much  less  three  messengers.     Simon 
Peter  could  not  bring  Cornelius  one  step  near- 
er to  God  Almighty;  he  was  already  as  near  as 
he  could  be  without  touching  Him.     Why  re- 
vert to  the  stage-coach  when  we  have  the  rail- 
way-train!   The    Spirit's   province   is   to   blow 
where  it  hsteth— as  the  lightning  cometh  out 
of  the  east  and  shineth  even   unto  the  west. 
There  must  be  some  cause  for  this  choice  of  a 
long  way.     If  an  object  is  within  reach  of  your 
hand  and  you  ring  a  bell  to  call  from  the  other 
end  of  the  house  some  one  who  will  give  it  to 


292         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

you,  it  is  clear  you  must  have  a  motive  beyond 
the  acquiring  of  the  object.  Can  we  discover 
any  motive  for  the  use  of  so  many  hands  in  the 
conversion  of  one  man? 

I  think  we  can.  Remember  who  this  one 
man  is.  He  is  a  soldier.  The  design  of  this 
picture  is  to  delineate  the  transplanting  of  a 
soldier.  I  say,  *  the  transplanting.'  Cornelius 
is  not  to  be  annihilated  and  created  a  new  man. 
His  soldierly  qualities  are  to  be  transferred  to 
a  Christian  soil.  But  if  you  want  to  do  that, 
you  must  approach  Cornelius  as  a  soldier. 
You  must  allow  Christianity  to  come  to  him  in 
a  military  form.  If  you  look  at  the  narrative 
in  this  light  you  will  see  how  singularly  appro- 
priate the  experience  was  to  the  man.  Consider 
for  one  thing  that  the  entire  constitution  of  an 
army  rests  on  mutual  dependence.  No  one 
can  be  a  successful  soldier  as  an  individual; 
he  requires  the  co  -  operation  of  his  fellows. 
Imagine  that  what  Cornelius  wanted  had  been, 
not  the  spirit  of  Christ,  but  the  spirit  of  Mars, 
the  god  of  war.  On  what  condition  could  Mars 
have  promised   his   spirit   to   Cornelius.'*    Only 


CORNELIUS  THE  TRANSPLANTED   293 

on  the  condition  that  the  same  spirit  should  be 
shared  by  many  others,  and  that  the  common 
inspiration  should  make  itself  felt  in  the  ranks. 
One  soldier  can  no  more  make  a  victory  than 
one  swallow  can  make  a  summer.  If  there  is  a 
divided  interest,  there  is  a  divided  allegiance. 
If  one  part  of  the  ranks  has  the  notion  that 
another  part  is  animated  by  a  different  spirit, 
the  former  will  not  only  distrust  the  latter — 
they  will  distrust  their  own  strength,  will  be 
paralysed  in  their  own  energy.  If  the  god  of 
war  had  appeared  to  Cornelius  he  must  have 
told  him  that  the  state  of  things  in  Caesarea 
would  be  affected  by  the  state  of  things  at 
Joppa. 

Now,  to  this  phase  of  the  soldier-life  Chris- 
tianity made  appeal  when  it  spoke  to  Cornelius. 
He  had  asked  the  spirit  of  Jesus  in  room  of  the 
spirit  of  Mars ;  yet  the  new  spirit  addressed  him 
in  the  garb  of  the  old.  God  revealed  Himself  as 
the  leader  of  an  army,  and  Cornelius  was  made 
to  feel  that  he  was  being  treated  as  a  soldier. 
The  voice  said  to  him :  *  Get  as  many  as  you 
can  to  take  an  interest  in  the  cause  in  which  you 


294         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

are  interested.  Enlist  your  two  servants  and 
the  soldier  who  waits  upon  you.  Enlist  your 
kinsmen  and  friends.  Enlist  the  sympathies  of 
Simon  Peter  and  those  who  are  in  his  train. 
Let  the  representatives  of  all  classes  give  a  sub- 
scription to  your  cause — the  domestic,  the  sol- 
dier, the  church -dignitary,  the  church -worker, 
the  companions  of  the  social  hour.  Let  them 
each  have  a  stone  in  the  temple,  a  window  in 
the  building.  Bring  me  not  your  own  heart 
alone,  but  the  sense  that  other  hearts  are  in 
union  with  yours.' 

This,  then,  I  take  to  be  the  first  reason  for 
the  protracted  process  in  the  conversion  of 
Cornelius.  The  design  is  to  transplant  a  sol- 
dier, and  therefore  he  is  approached  as  a  military 
man — as  one  who  has  always  associated  victory 
with  the  co-operation  of  the  many.  But  I  come 
to  a  second  reason  for  the  protraction  of  the 
process,  and  one  which  also  lies  in  the  appeal 
to  a  soldier.  For,  an  army  is  characterised,  not 
only  by  the  mutual  dependence  of  its  members, 
but  by  their  common  life  of  sacrifice.  In  time 
of  war  the  essence  of  military  life  is  its  sacri- 


CORNELIUS  THE  TRANSPLANTED    295 

ficial  character.  I  say,  in  time  of  war.  There 
may  be  license  in  time  of  peace — the  Roman 
soldier  was  then  no  paragon.  But  in  war  there 
is  no  life  so  full  of  sacrifice.  Nor  do  I  think 
that  the  main  stress  of  military  sacrifice  lies  in 
the  hour  of  battle.  There  have  been  men  in 
the  heat  of  battle  who  have  for  a  time  been 
unconscious  of  their  wounds.  It  seems  to  me 
that  the  sorest  part  of  a  soldier's  military  life 
is  in  the  things  which  defer  the  battle,  in  the 
objects  which  impose  delay.  It  is  in  the  long 
and  weary  marches,  in  the  treading  of  arduous 
ground,  in  the  exposure  to  thirst  and  hunger, 
in  the  fatigue  and  lassitude  which  accompany  a 
burning  sun,  in  the  demand  to  keep  up  the 
spirit  when  there  is  no  excitement,  no  call  to 
action,  no  enemy  in  view — it  is  there  that  the 
sacrifice  of  the  soldier  appears.  I  believe  that 
the  deepest  sacrifices  in  the  soul  of  man  are  not 
in  life's  actual  battlefield,  but  in  its  moments 
of  silent  endurance.  Many  a  man  can  resist  the 
winecup  in  company  who  cannot  resist  it  in  soli- 
tude ;  for  the  idea  of  a  thing  is  ever  more  power- 
ful than  itself,  and   its  image  in  the  heart  out- 


296         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

weighs  its  image  in  the  hand.     The  life  of  the 
soldier  has  embodied  a  truth  of  humanity. 

Now,  it  is  to  this  Hfe  of  the  soldier  that  in  the 
case  of  Cornelius  Christianity  appeals.  Cor- 
nelius is  in  hot  haste  to  reach  his  goal — the 
Advent  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  That  will  be  to 
him  the  beginning  of  the  real  battle  with  sin; 
the  day  of  the  Spirit's  coming  will  be  to  Cor- 
nelius the  day  of  conquest — and  with  all  his 
might  he  longs  for  it.  But  he  must  be  treated 
as  a  soldier ;  he  must  be  made  to  pass  through  a 
soldier's  sacrifice.  The  conquest  might  come 
at  once;  but  that  would  not  be  the  revelation 
to  a  soldier.  God  must  speak  to  Cornelius  in 
his  own  language — and  that  language  is  mili- 
tary sacrifice.  Instead  of  reaching  his  goal  in 
a  moment,  let  him  wait  for  it  anxious  days, 
march  for  it  long  miles,  weave  for  it  arduous 
plans.  Let  him  for  the  sake  of  it  submit  to  the 
temporary  loss  of  two  of  his  servants.  Let  him 
for  a  time  dispense  with  the  services  of  his 
favourite  attendant — a  soldier  who  knows  his 
special  wants  and  when  to  meet  them.  Let 
him,  above  all,   sink  his  pride.     Proud  Roman 


CORNELIUS  THE  TRANSPLANTED    297 

as  he  was,  representative  of  Roman  conquest 
as  he  was,  let  him  bow  the  knee  to  one  who  had 
been  a  fisherman  of  Galilee  and  acknowledge 
that  in  matters  spiritual  the  peasant  was  his  liege 
lord.  I  think  there  is  something  grandly  appro- 
priate in  the  delay  imposed  on  the  soldier  Cor- 
nelius. 

But  there  is,  I  think,  a  third  element  in  mili- 
tary life  which  constitutes  a  ground  for  the 
appropriateness  of  the  delay.  The  life  of  the 
soldier,  whether  he  means  it  or  not,  is  a  vicari- 
ous one;  it  is  lived  for  the  sake  of  others,  A 
man  may  live  sacrificially  and  yet  may  live  pure- 
ly for  himself.  The  artist  may  scorn  delights 
and  spend  laborious  days,  yet  he  may  be  animat- 
ed by  a  motive  essentially  selfish — the  achieving 
of  some  work  that  will  perfect  his  fame.  But 
the  average  soldier  can  have  no  such  motive. 
To  a  man  of  the  ranks,  even  to  a  man,  like 
Cornelius,  a  little  above  the  ranks,  the  chance 
of  winning  distinction  is  infinitesimally  small; 
and  the  pay  is  not  worth  striving  for.  There 
is  an  elimination  of  all  personal  feeling — even 
the  feeling  of  enmity.     The  man  is  at  war  with 


298         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

something  he  does  not  hate.  He  is  fighting 
the  battle  of  another — his  country.  Voluntarily 
or  involuntarily,  it  is  for  her  he  makes  long 
marches,  it  is  for  her  he  bears  the  drought  and 
the  famine,  it  is  for  her  he  endures  privation 
and  weariness,  it  is  for  her  he  dares  the  path 
of  death  and  braves  the  mutilation  of  life  and 
limb.  The  soldier,  whether  he  knows  it  or  not, 
whether  he  accedes  to  it  or  not,  is  working 
for  another's  joy. 

So,  when  Christianity  comes  to  Cornelius  it 
appeals  to  this  fact  of  the  military  experience. 
It  bids  him  connect  his  conversion,  not  with  his 
own  glory,  but  with  the  glory  of  others.  It  tells 
him  to  calculate,  not  how  happy  he  will  be,  but 
how  many  people  he  will  make  happy.  And 
think  for  a  moment  how  beautifully  this  purpose 
is  achieved.  Cornelius  submitted  to  a  proc- 
ess which  robbed  him  of  all  glory.  He  took  a 
back  seat.  He  subsided  into  the  place  of  a 
passive  recipient.  He  gave  the  post  of  action 
to  his  servants,  to  his  private  attendant,  to  the 
Christians  at  Joppa,  above  all  to  Simon  Peter. 
It  was  to  enlarge  Peter^  not  to  enlarge  him- 


CORNELIUS  THE  TRANSPLANTED   299 

self,  that  Cornelius  was  directed  to  the  Chris- 
tian apostle.  Cornelius  might  have  reached  the 
kingdom  at  a  bound;  but  Peter  would  have 
felt  sore  that  a  man  should  mount  to  heaven 
without  circumcision.  The  Divine  Voice  said: 
*  There  must  be  no  soreness  on  this  birthday. 
I  must  first  liberalise  Peter — must  stoop  to  win 
his  approval.  I  must  send  him  up  to  the  roof  of 
the  tanner's  house  at  Joppa.  I  must  tell  him 
to  look  forth  upon  the  sea — that  sea  on  which 
rested  the  eyes  of  my  prophet  Jonah.  And 
when  he  remembers  Jonah  he  will  remember 
Nineveh.  He  will  remember  how  even  on  the 
heathen  city  my  compassion  failed  not  to  fall — 
though  circumcision  was  not  there,  though  tem- 
ple was  not  there,  though  rite  of  Jewish  worship 
was  not  there.  He  will  remember  and  he  will 
say,  "What  God  has  cleansed  let  me  not  call 
unclean!"  And  then  I  shall  cry  to  Peter, 
"Come  thyself,  and  cure  Cornelius!"  Cor- 
nelius needs  him  not;  but  he  sadly  needs  Cor- 
nelius. He  wants  to  be  broadened,  deepened, 
heightened ;  I  shall  make  him  put  his  hand  upon 
the   Gentile   and   speak   peace.     For   the   sake 


300         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

of  another's  joy  Cornelius  may  wdl  consent  to 
take  a  lower  room. ' 

Let  me  now  revert  to  the  statement  that  the 
design  of  this  picture  is  to  exhibit  the  trans- 
planting of  a  soldier — in  other  words,  that  it  is 
intended  to  represent  the  grafting  of  military 
qualities  into  the  Church  of  Christ.  At  first 
sight  this  is  the  last  kind  of  transference  which 
could  have  been  thought  an  object  of  desire. 
We  can  understand  very  well  how  the  qualities 
of  the  domestic  servant  should  be  carried  over 
into  the  many  mansions  of  the  Father's  house, 
for  the  qualities  of  the  domestic  servant  are, 
even  in  the  houses  of  men,  Divine  virtues — gifts 
of  the  grace  of  God.  Obedience  to  duty,  fidel- 
ity, honesty,  integrity,  truthfulness,  justice, 
the  absence  of  self-interest  and  of  eye-service 
— these  are  the  qualities  which  mark  the  good 
servant  in  the  secular  home,  and  these  are  the 
qualities  which  stamp  the  good  servant  in  the 
household  of  faith.  Christianity,  as  much  as 
life,  is  a  state  of  dependence ;  and  the  form  of  a 
servant  is  required  for  both.  But  war — where 
does  that  find  place  in  the  precepts  of  Christ !  Is 


CORNELIUS  THE  TRANSPLANTED   301 

He  not  the  Prince  of  Peace!  Was  not  'Peace' 
the  song  over  His  cradle  and  the  sigh  of  His 
last  farewell!  Were  not  the  makers  of  peace 
to  be  called  in  a  special  sense  the  children  of  His 
Father!  Where  is  there  room  for  Cornelius 
here  —  for  the  soldier  Cornelius  1  There  is 
room  for  the  man;  but  must  he  not  lay  aside 
his  sword  and  his  helmet  when  he  enters  the 
kingdom  of  Christ!  Surely  the  red  flowers  of 
man's  garden  will  not  be  transplanted  into  the 
Garden  of  the  Lord ! 

Yes,  they  must  and  they  shall.  The  demand 
for  such  transplanting  has  been  loud  through 
all  the  Christian  ages.  Why  did  the  Medieval 
Church  initiate  orders  of  sacred  knighthood — 
knights  of  the  temple,  knights  of  St.  Mary, 
knights  of  St.  John }  It  was  because  the  Medi- 
eval Church  wanted  a  section  of  her  sons  to  be 
soldiers  in  spirit  and  to  transfer  the  qualities  of 
war  into  the  paths  of  peace.  Why  has  our  mod- 
ern Christianity  instituted  a  Salvation  Army.? 
It  is  because  Cornelius  is  still  needed  among  the 
Christians — ^because  in  peace  as  well  as  in  war 
there  are  wrongs  that  await  redressing.     Why 


302         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

does  our  twentieth  century  inaugurate  in  every 
town  a  Boys'  Brigade?  It  is  because  we  want 
Cornelius  in  the  midst  of  us.  It  is  because  we 
desire  that  from  an  early  age  our  youthful  gen- 
eration should  learn  to  associate  religion  with 
manliness,  to  connect  the  cross  of  Christ  with 
all  that  is  brave  and  heroic  and  noble,  and  to 
plant  in  civil  life  those  very  seeds  which  in  the 
sphere  of  the  warrior  made  for  military  glory. 

The  truth  is,  what  Christian  civilisation  needs 
in  a  time  of  peace  is  pre-eminently  the  presence 
of  Cornelius — the  infusion  of  a  military  element. 
We  are  apt  to  be  ashamed  in  peace  of  that 
which  we  laud  in  war.  In  men  on  the  road  to 
battle  we  admire  abstinence,  temperance,  cau- 
tion, care  of  bodily  health,  the  avoidance  of  any 
temptation  to  any  form  of  physical  excess.  We 
count  this  manly;  and  why.?  Because  the  men 
are  under  military  orders.  But  when  we  see 
these  qualities  in  time  of  peace  we  are  apt 
to  call  them  womanish;  and  why.?  Because 
then  the  men  are  not  supposed  to  be  under 
military  orders,  but  to  be  simply  timorous, 
nervous,   frightened.     Yet,   from  the  Christian 


CORNELIUS  THE  TRANSPLANTED   303 

point  of  view,  this  is  a  mistake.  The  man  is 
as  truly  on  the  march  in  peace  as  in  war,  and 
as  truly  under  orders.  We  want  him  to  feel 
that.  We  want  him  to  realise  that  in  the  com- 
mon things  of  life  he  is  on  soldier's  duty — bound 
by  a  tie  of  honour,  pledged  by  an  oath  of  fealty, 
dedicated  to  the  service  of  a  government  whose 
rule  is  over  all  nations.  *  They  shall  beat  their 
swords  into  ploughshares  and  their  spears  into 
pruning-hooks]'  are  the  words  in  which  is  pro- 
claimed the  advent  of  the  Prince  of  Peace.  But 
even  in  that  proclamation  there  is  a  tribute  paid 
to  the  soldier.  The  old  warlike  material  is  not 
to  be  thrown  away;  it  is  the  sword  that  is  to 
become  the  ploughshare,  it  is  the  spear  that  is  to 
be  made  the  pruning-hook.  Cornelius  the  sol- 
dier is  not  to  be  annihilated  in  the  resurrection 
of  Cornelius  the  man.  As  he  ascends  in  his 
fiery  chariot  the  military  mantle  is  not  to  drop 
from  him.  It  is  to  be  carried  into  the  new 
kingdom,  to  be  worn  in  the  new  world,  to  be 
illustrated  in  the  new  life.  The  sacrificial  spirit 
which  animates  the  deeds  of  war  is  to  be  dis- 
played again  in  the  fields  of  peace. 


304         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

As  he  enters  the  portals  of  the  Christian  Hfe 
CorneHus  fades  from  our  view;  his  form  is  lost 
in  the  crowd,  and  we  see  him  no  more.  But 
though  in  visible  presence  he  appears  not,  he 
reappears  in  metaphor.  Cornelius  represents 
and  foreshadows  the  conquest  of  Rome  by 
Christ.  Viewed  in  this  typical  aspect,  we  do 
meet  him  again.  Nearly  three  centuries  after, 
we  see  his  conversion  repeated  in  the  conver- 
sion by  Christianity  of  the  empire  itself.  There 
stands  Cornelius  once  more — calling  on  Peter 
to  help  him !  There  he  stands — wielding  the 
military  sceptre,  but  surrendering  the  sceptre 
of  the  heart!  There  he  stands — embodying  in 
converted  Rome  a  union  of  his  own  three  ex- 
periences! His  original  Paganism  is  there — 
heathen  rites  are  baptised  into  Christian  wor- 
ship. His  subsequent  Judaism  is  there — 3.  God 
is  recognised  who  is  holy  but  hard  to  be  en- 
treated, flawless  but  far  away.  His  final  Chris- 
tianity is  there  —  the  cross  has  become  the 
watchword  of  all  life  and  the  symbol  of  all 
power.  And  the  retention  of  his  soldier-heart 
is  there — with  the  garment  of  Christ  Rome  has 


CORNELIUS  THE  TRANSPLANTED   305 

put  on  a  fresh  military  robe.  She  has  increased 
her  fearlessness;  she  has  augmented  her  forti- 
tude; she  has  strengthened  her  power  of  en- 
durance; she  has  deepened  her  determination; 
she  has  quickened  her  loyalty;  she  has  fanned 
her  enthusiasm ;  she  has  sharpened  her  sense  of 
duty ;  she  has  almost  created  her  spirit  of  chiv- 
alry. The  sword  has  survived  in  the  plough- 
share, the  spear  in  the  pruning-hook. 

LORD,  fit  me  for  the  ranks  of  Thine  army! 
Put  Thy  best  robe  upon  me — the  soldier's 
robe!  Give  me  Thy  truly  military  spirit — the 
spirit  that  casteth  out  fear — love!  Fit  me  for 
the  times  of  waiting!  I  am  more  afraid  of  the 
silence  than  the  conflict.  Often  have  I  said  in 
the  old  time,  'If  I  could  get  away  from  the 
world,  I  could  put  off  my  armour. '  Often  have 
I  thought,  *  If  I  could  leave  the  scenes  of  tempta- 
tion and  could  rest  in  some  quiet,  secluded  spot, 
I  might  lay  aside  the  soldier's  garb.'  And  lo! 
when  I  tried  it,  I  found  that  I  must  add  to  my 
armour.     I  found  that  the  scene  of  temptation 

is  not  outside  of  me  but  within  me,  that  the  bat- 
10 


3o6         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

tlefield  is  the  silent  field.  I  need  Thee  most, 
my  Father,  when  I  am  meeting  with  myself.  I 
could  perform  a  sacrifice  amid  the  crowd  because 
I  feel  that  the  crowd  would  applaud  me  for  it. 
But  when  Thou  hast  sent  the  multitude  away, 
when  there  are  no  spectators  of  my  struggle, 
when  the  flags  wave  not,  the  banners  stream  not, 
the  trumpets  blow  not,  when  I  am  alone  in  the 
field  with  my  own  will,  it  is  then  I  need  Thine 
armour,  O  my  God.  It  is  comparatively  easy 
to  wrestle  after  daybreak,  for  the  daybreak  dis- 
tracts me  from  myself.  But  before  the  day 
breaks,  I  am  alone — alone  with  myself,  alone 
with  my  erring  soul.  Arm  me,  O  Lord,  arm  me 
for  the  great  battle  where  there  fights  but  one! 
Give  me  a  sword  for  the  solitude,  a  spear  for 
the  silence,  a  helmet  for  the  hermitage,  a 
breastplate  for  the  breathless  air!  Quicken  me 
for  the  quiet,  fortify  me  for  the  fireside,  nerve 
me  for  the  night,  strengthen  me  for  the  study, 
warm  me  for  the  woodland  ramble,  inspire  me 
for  the  inland  calm !  Let  me  wear  my  armour  ii^K 
life's  placid  hour! 


CHAPTER   XV 

TIMOTHY   THE   DISCIPLINED 

There  are  some  who  have  professed  to  read 
the  character  by  the  handwriting.  In  the  case 
of  Timothy  we  have  a  task  more  difficult  still; 
it  is  to  read  the  character  of  one  man  by  the 
handwriting  of  another.  Nearly  all  we  can 
gather  of  the  inner  life  of  Timothy  is  wrapped 
up  within  two  brief  letters  addressed  to  him 
by  Paul.  They  are  really  a  ministerial  charge 
containing  practical  advices  and  cautions  to  Tim- 
othy on  his  appointment  to  the  pastorate  of  the 
Church  at  Ephesus.  Are  we  entitled  to  take 
these  advices  and  cautions  as  indicating  Paul's 
sense  of  Timothy's  weak  points.?  I  think  we 
are.  When  Paul  writes  a  letter  it  is  always  a 
characteristic  letter — characteristic,  I  mean,  of 
the  person   or  persons  written   to.     When   he 

writes  to  the  residents  in   Rome,   he  exhibits 
307 


3o8        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

Christ  as  *  the  power  unto  salvation ' — ^and  why  ? 
Because  the  dweller  in  that  military  city  was 
apt  to  think  Christianity  a  form  of  weakness. 
When  he  writes  to  the  Corinthians,  he  exhib- 
its Christ  as  wisdom — and  why?  Because  to 
the  Greek  Christianity  appeared  foolishness. 
When  he  writes  to  the  Galatians,  he  tells  them 
to  be  not  weary  in  well-doing  —  and  why.!* 
Because  they  had  revealed  themselves  as  fickle. 
When  he  writes  to  Philemon,  it  is  to  guide  him 
in  a  personal  affair — an  affair  in  which  he  had 
temptation  to  show  harshness.  Nay,  when  he 
writes  to  Timothy  himself  on  a  physical  matter, 
his  advice  is  professedly  dictated  by  a  sense  of 
Timothy's  infirmity — 'Take  a  little  wine  for 
your  stomach's  sake.'  I  conclude  therefore 
that,  as  the  physical  advice  was  prompted  by 
Paul's  knowledge  of  a  physical  weakness,  the  <- 
mental  advice  was  prompted  by  his  knowledge 
of  a  mental  weakness ;  and  I  feel  authorised  to 
use  these  letters  as  a  biographical  mirror  in 
which  the  secrets  of  the  life  are  revealed  and 
the  heart  of  the  man  is  spread  out  before  us. 
Timothy    could    have    started    life    with    the 


TIMOTHY  THE  DISCIPLINED         309 

motto,  '  Two  worlds  are  mine. '  He  was  born 
probably  at  Lystra — a  city  of  Lycaonia.  With- 
in him  was  the  blood  of  two  opposite  heredities. 
His  mother  Eunice  and  his  grandmother  Lois 
were  Jewish  Christians  of  the  most  pious  and 
devoted  type.  That  stream  of  heredity  from 
the  blood  of  Israel  was,  however,  counteracted 
by  another  stream.  If  his  mother  was  a  Jew, 
his  father  was  a  Greek — of  what  religious  per- 
suasion we  know  not.  Timothy  was  therefore 
the  child  of  opposite  worlds,  and  it  was  inevit- 
able that  they  should  strive  within  him.  Israel 
and  Greece  were  essentially  opposed  currents. 
Their  difference  lay  deeper  than  any  religious 
doctrine;  it  was  constituted  by  their  view  of 
life.  The  Jew  aimed  at  the  repression  of  na- 
ture ;  the  object  of  the  Greek  was  to  give  nature 
full  play.  The  Jew  encouraged  the  sense  of 
obligation;  the  Greek  fostered  the  thought  of 
spontaneity.  The  Jew  looked  upon  the  uni- 
verse with  awe;  the  Greek  viewed  it  as  a  pleas- 
ure-ground. The  Jew  uncovered  his  head  in 
the  presence  of  Divine  mysteries;  the  Greek 
made  them  subjects  of  daring  speculation.     It 


3IO         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

was  evident  that  the  main  danger  to  Timothy  lay 
on  the  Greek  side.  Where  Judaism  embraced 
Christianity  it  was  sternly  Christian;  where 
Greece  favoured  Christianity  its  affection  was 
apt  to  be  divided.  Probably  in  the  mind  of 
the  father  Christianity  had  not  passed  the  stage 
of  a  mere  favourable  recognition.  The  age  of 
'many  gods*  was  past;  but  the  age  of  *many 
systems'  had  taken  its  place,  and  the  father  of 
Timothy  in  all  likelihood  leant  towards  each  in 
turn.  It  was  not  altogether  a  propitious  nest 
for  the  maturing  of  a  steady  wing. 

In  the  home,  however,  the  mother  seems  to 
have  had  her  own  way.  She  brought  up  the 
child  in  the  faith  of  Christ  and  under  the  in- 
fluence of  her  pious  example.  He  seems  to 
have  been  early  put  to  active  service  in  the 
cause  of  Christianity.  When  Paul  on  his  mis- 
sionary journey  came  to  Lystra  and  first  saw 
him,  he  was  exceedingly  young;  yet  he  was  al- 
ready talked  of  as  a  helper  in  the  work.  Paul 
was  greatly  struck  wth  him.  He  discerned  the 
promise  and  the  potency  of  a  high  and  useful  life 
which  was  worth  fostering  into  bloom.     He  re- 


TIMOTHY  THE  DISCIPLINED        311 

solved  to  train  him  under  his  own  eye.  Doubt- 
less he  recognised  the  danger  of  the  counter- 
acting Greek  current  in  his  blood  and  in  his 
home,  and  thought  the  removal  from  his  home 
might  modify  the  action  of  his  blood.  Accord- 
ingly, he  took  Timothy  with  him.  He  took 
him  as  a  pupil — one  to  be  trained  for  higher 
service.  But  when  next  we  meet  him  he  is  no 
longer  Paul's  pupil;  he  is  his  companion.  He 
has  not  indeed  entered  into  the  place  of  part- 
nership vacated  by  Barnabas.  It  was  rather  an 
association  of  love  than  of  business,  and  that 
kind  of  love  which  bridges  the  separation  of 
those  divided  by  a  gulf  of  years.  The  older 
man  felt  himself  a  protector;  the  younger 
clung  to  his  support.  Paul  realised  that  he  had 
adopted  this  youth,  become  sponsor  for  him  in 
the  eye  of  heaven.  He  felt  that  he  was  respon- 
sible for  his  eternal  welfare — that  he  had  to  sup- 
ply the  place  which  the  good  mother  had  filled 
and  which  the  indifferent  father  ought  to  have 
filled.  A  flower  had  been  committed  to  him  in 
the  Garden  of  the  Lord;  that  flower  he  had 
to  water  every  morning  and  nurture  every  day. 


3ia         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

Was  there  a  possibility  that  the  relation  of 
Paul  and  Timothy  might  ever  be  reversed — 
that  Timothy  might  become  the  protector  and 
Paul  the  recipient?  There  would  have  been, 
but  for  one  circumstance.  It  was  this — Paul 
was  never  able  to  realise  that  Timothy  was 
growing  older.  He  insisted  on  always  viewing 
him  as  the  lad  he  met  in  Lystra.  On  that 
occasion  Timothy  was  probably  about  twenty 
years  of  age.  That  was  an  exceedingly  young 
man  to  have  gained  a  local  reputation  among 
the  Christians;  and  we  could  have  understood 
Paul  saying  at  that  time,  '  Let  no  man  despise 
thy  youth.'  But  he  says  it  some  fifteen  years 
afterwards — when  Timothy  must  have  passed 
youth's  despicable  stage.  The  words  were 
spoken  near  the  end  of  Paul's  life.  He  had 
gone  through  most  of  his  crisis-moments.  He 
had  been  imprisoned  in  Caesarea.  He  had  made 
his  appeal  to  Caesar.  He  had  been  shipwrecked 
on  his  voyage  to  Rome.  He  had  been  acquitted 
by  a  Roman  tribunal.  He  had  resumed  his 
missionary  labours,  and,  as  a  final  act  in  them, 
he   had   ordained   Timothy   to   the   Church   of 


TIMOTHY  THE  DISCIPLINED        313 

Ephesus.  He  had  returned  to  Rome.  He 
had  been  imprisoned  once  more — in  that  dun- 
geon from  which  he  was  only  to  issue  through 
the  gate  of  death.  It  was  from  that  final  cap- 
tivity that  he  wrote  his  pastoral  counsels  to  his 
friend  of  long  years.  And  it  is  then  most  of 
all  that  he  seems  to  forget  the  years.  He  sees 
Timothy,  not  as  he  is,  but  as  he  was.  He  ig- 
nores the  fifteen  winters  whose  storms  have 
swept  across  his  brow  and  whose  chills  have 
furrowed  his  cheek.  He  sees  him  in  his  home 
at  Lystra  in  all  the  freshness  of  life's  morning. 
He  sees  him  between  two  fires — the  fire  of  de- 
votion to  his  mother  and  the  fire  of  admiration 
for  his  father.  He  sees  the  struggle  of  his 
young  heart  between  the  Jew  and  the  Greek — 
between  the  surrender  of  will  and  the  specula- 
tion of  intellect.  He  feels  that  the  same  con- 
flict is  raging  in  the  world  still — nowhere  more 
than  at  Ephesus,  and  that  the  whole  current 
must  be  breasted  by  an  inexperienced  boy.  In 
words  which  are  pathetic  in  their  loss  of  the 
sense  of  time  he  cries,  *  Let  no  man  despise  thy 
youth. ' 


314         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

But  have  we  never  seen  anything  like  this  out- 
side of  the  New  Testament!  Is  it  not  a  matter 
of  daily  observation!  Do  we  not  know  that 
those  who  have  been  the  guardians  of  the  young 
find  it  very  hard  to  realise  their  adolescence! 
I  knew  an  elderly  woman  who  always  spoke  of 
her  brothers  as  *  these  boys. '  There  was  not 
one  of  them  under  fifty  years  of  age;  but  she 
had  been  as  a  mother  to  them  in  youth  and 
she  realised  not  that  their  youth  was  gone.  It 
is  always  the  tendency  of  love  to  clothe  its 
object  with  permanence.  It  is  told  of  St.  John 
that,  when  an  old  man,  he  stood  in  the  streets 
of  Ephesus  and  cried,  *  Little  children,  love  one 
another ! '  Probably  the  '  little  children  '  were 
nearly  as  old  as  himself;  but  they  had  been 
brought  up  as  pupils  in  his  Bible-class  and  he 
felt  to  them  as  a  father.  His  love  was  too  strong 
to  observe  the  growing  shadow  on  the  dial; 
it  saw  the  objects  of  its  morning  in  the  same 
perpetual  youth  as  that  in  which  the  Christian 
saw  his  Christ — unchanged  yesterday  and  to- 
day and  for  ever.  Paul,  too,  had  an  illusion  in  the 
streets  of  Ephesus;   he  took  a  man  to  be  a  boy. 


TIMOTHY  THE  DISCIPLINED        315 

It  was  love's  cry  for  permanence.  It  was  the 
protest  of  the  heart  for  the  continuance  of  the 
morning.  It  was  the  desire  of  the  spirit  that  time 
should  write  no  wrinkle  on  the  azure  brow  of  that  "^^^-^-w^ 
sea  of  life  on  which  he  had  sailed  long  years  ago. 
Timothy,  then,  stood  before  the  eye  of  Paul 
in  the  garb  of  a  young  man.  Paul  felt  that  he 
wanted  discipline — that  the  flower  within  him 
must  be  cultivated.  It  was  not  learning  he 
needed ;  it  was  pruning.  There  are  men  whose 
temptation  comes  from  their  ignorance;  the 
dangers  of  Timothy  came  from  his  knowledge, 
his  culture,  his  intellectual  development.  The 
spirit  of  Greece  was  in  him,  and  the  spirit  of 
Greece  was  the  spirit  of  independent  thought. 
Paul  dearly  loved  to  think  of  him  as  still  young; 
but  he  felt  that  his  Greek  blood  made  youth  a 
special  danger.  It  was  to  youth  that  the  seduc- 
tions of  Greece  peculiarly  appealed.  Rome's 
muscular  vigour  spoke  to  manhood;  Judea's 
restraining  influence  spoke  to  middle  age;  but 
Greece  with  her  morning  radiance  addressed 
the  spirit  of  youth  and  found  her  most  power- 
ful votaries  in  the  children  of  the  spring. 


3i6         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

Let  me  now  proceed  to  indicate  some  of 
those  weak  points  of  Timothy's  youth  which 
Paul  by  an  act  of  imagination  transferred  to 
his  riper  age.  You  will  find  that  they  will  open 
up  to  every  man  a  chapter  of  autobiography 
and  that  the  weak  points  of  young  Timothy  are 
the  weak  points  which  are  apt  to  beset  the  youth 
of  all  men.  Now,  Paul  is  very  emphatic  as 
to  the  charge  which  in  importance  he  would 
place  first.  It  is  not  the  charge  which  we 
should  expect  him  to  place  first.  If  we  were  ad- 
dressing one  whom  we  thought  of  as  a  young 
man  and  whom  we  believed  to  be  under  special 
temptation,  we  should  begin  by  warning  him 
against  flagrant  sins — against  the  excesses  of 
the  wine-cup,  the  excesses  of  the  gaming-table, 
the  excesses  of  human  passion.  Paul  does  not 
start  with  any  of  these;  he  tells  Timothy  first 
and  foremost  to  cherish  a  reverent  spirit  towards 
those  in  authority!  Is  not  this  a  strange  ad- 
vice to  put  in  the  front  ground  of  a  young  man's 
discipline.  I  do  not  think  so.  I  think  it  would 
be  the  advice  which  in  actual  youth  Timothy 
first  needed.     What  is  the  root  of  youth's  dan- 


TIMOTHY  THE  DISCIPLINED        317 

gers?  It  is  the  resistance  to  authority.  I  do 
not  mean  the  resistance  to  any  particular  au- 
thority, but  to  the  principle  of  authority  itself. 
A  young  man  tends  to  love  the  fruit  because  it 
is  forbidden.  The  fruit  in  itself  is  often  dis- 
tasteful to  him.  Command  young  Adam  t 
climb  the  tree  of  knowledge,  and  he  will  prob 
ably  refuse ;  forbid  him,  and  that  tree  will  become 
an  object  of  desire.  Youth  oftener  goes  wrong 
from  a  false  ideal  of  manliness  than  from  any 
love  of  vice.  To  be  free,  to  be  independent, 
to  do  what  one  likes,  to  reveal  the  magnificent 
example  of  'I  don't  care,'  to  be  pointed  out  as 
a  bold,  reckless  spirit  that  fears  not  the  face 
of  man  —  that  is  the  ideal  which  swims  before 
the  eye  of  youth  and  draws  it  into  all  perils. 

When  Paul  first  met  Timothy  everything  in 
the  young  man's  blood  tempted  to  the  resist- 
ance of  authority.  His  youth  tempted  him,  for 
youth  loves  to  feel  itself  free.  His  Greek  de- 
scent tempted  him,  for  Greece  had  ever  as- 
pired to  be  free.  And,  strange  to  say,  it  must 
be  added  that  his  Christianity  itself  tempted  him. 
It  sounds  curious  to  hear  Paul  exhort  Timothy 


3i8         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

to  pray  for  kings.  We  should  have  thought  the 
charge  would  be,  *  Pray  for  the  poor  and  desti- 
tute. '  But  we  forget  that  by  the  early  Christian 
it  was  the  kings,  and  not  the  destitute,  who 
were  apt  to  be  neglected.  The  typical  primitive 
Christian  looked  down  upon  his  temporal  rulers. 
He  held  that  the  humble  classes  were  the  privi- 
leged classes.  What  he  extended  to  the  rich 
was  at  most  only  a  patronage.  It  was  not  nat- 
ural that  he  should  pray  first  for  kings.  He 
was  a  subject  of  no  king  but  one — the  Lord 
Jesus.  The  rulers  of  the  world  were  in  posses- 
sion of  a  mock  dignity — a  dignity  which  be- 
longed, not  to  them,  but  to  Him.  Why  should 
he  pray  for  their  wise  governing!  Was  not 
their  government,  whether  wise  or  unwise,  an 
obstacle  in  the  march  of  the  King  of  kings! 
Had  not  he  a  higher  allegiance — the  allegiance 
to  another  world,  to  a  coming  world,  to  a  world 
before  whose  blaze  of  glory  all  the  thrones  and 
principalities  and  powers  of  earth  must  wither 
away!  The  kings  of  the  nations  might  take 
tribute  from  his  hand;  they  could  get  no  trib- 
ute from  his  soul. 


TIMOTHY  THE  DISCIPLINED        319 

So  in  all  likelihood  thought  young  Timothy 
in  the  days  when  Paul  first  met  him ;  and  Paul 
transfers  his  youth  to  his  riper  years.  He 
warns  hii?i  that  he  is  on  a  quicksand,  ^e  tells 
him  to  dismiss  his  contempt  for  the  higher  seats 
of  this  world.  He  tells  him  that,  whether  they 
know  it  or  not,  the  rulers  of  earth  are  God's 
ministers.  He  tells  him  that,  whether  they 
know  it  or  not,  they  are  responsible  for  the  bear- 
ing of  a  great  burden.  He  tells  him  that,  by 
reason  of  this  burden,  they  are  objects  not  for 
anger  but  for  reverent  commiseration  —  that 
they  have  more  need  to  be  prayed  for  than 
the  poor  and  destitute.  He  bids  him  pray  for 
them  first  of  all;  he  bids  him  teach  his  peo- 
ple to  pray  for  them.  It  was  a  new  call  to  sym- 
pathy. Hitherto  sympathy  has  been  asked  to 
descend  the  ladder;  it  is  now  asked  to  go  up — 
to  extend  its  charity  to  the  high  places  of  the 
earth,  to  enter  into  the  troubles  of  those  who 
sit  in  the  upper  room. 

Let  me  pass  now  to  a  second  advice  given 
by  Paul  to  Timothy,  or  rather  to  a  combination 
of  two  advices  often  supposed  to  be  contradic- 


320        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

tory.  He  virtually  tells  him  to  avoid  two  kinds 
of  fast  living — the  fastness  of  brain  and  the  fast- 
ness of  brainlessness.  On  the  one  hand  he  is 
very  anxious  that  as  a  pastor  he  should  avoid 
matters  of  intellectual  speculation.  On  the 
other  he  is  equally  solicitous  that  he  should  not 
fritter  away  intellect  altogether  by  living  for  triv- 
ialities and  frivolities — *  Flee  youthful  desires ! ' 
he  says.  I  have  said  that  these  two  dangers 
seem  opposite  —  the  one  is  over-thoughty  the 
other  is  thoughtlessness.  We  think  of  the 
former  as  a  slow  and  quiet  life,  of  the  latter  as 
a  life  of  fastness.  The  truth  is,  they  are  both 
fast,  and  may  be  both  equally  fast.  What  do 
we  mean  by  fastness?  Simply  that  too  many 
sensations  are  being  crowded  together  in  a  small 
space  and  in  a  short  time.  Physically  speaking, 
it  matters  not  what  the  sensation  be.  You  may 
be  a  student  living  far  from  the  works  and  ways 
of  men,  dwelling  in  seclusion  and  solitude,  ab- 
staining from  the  whole  round  of  worldly  pleas- 
ure, never  seen  at  fancy  fete  or  fashionable  ball, 
and  yet  you  may  be  living  as  fast  a  life  as  if  you 
were  spending  your  days  in  a  whirl  of  gaiety. 


TIMOTHY  THE  DISCIPLINED        321 

It  is  the  number  and  the  rapidity  of  your  sensa- 
tions, and  not  their  moral  character,  that  deter- 
mine the  rate  at  which  you  are  travelling. 

Now,  it  is  more  than  likely  that  Timothy  in 
his  young  days  was  under  both  of  these  tempta- 
tions. Does  it  seem  to  us  that  both  could  not 
exist  in  the  same  mind — that  the  one  would  serve 
as  a  counteraction  to  the  other.  We  forget  that 
this  is  the  very  thing  which  makes  their  exist- 
ence in  one  mind  possible.  Who,  according  to 
the  Jewish  Scriptures,  is  the  man  most  taken  up 
with  the  frivolities  of  life?    Of  all  people,   it  . 

is  Solomon  —  the  profound  student,  the  deep 
Vscholar,  the  speculative  thinker,  the  man  who  f^-^''^ 
filled  the  world  with  the  fame  of  his  wisdom !  I  \^^r\A 
used  to  wonder  at  the  incongruous  combination. 
I  see  now  that  it  is  true  to  human  nature.  The 
typical  Solomon  is  ever  the  most  in  danger  of 
becoming  frivolous.  He  needs  a  reaction.  His 
mind  has  been  on  the  wing  round  the  stars;  it 
will  by  and  by  be  on  the  wing  round  the  candle. 
He  has  been  revolving  the  problems  of  eternity ; 
he  will  before  long  revolve  in  the  dance  of  the 
hour.    It  is  the  very  cry  for  a  counteracting  in- 

31 


322        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

fluence  that  drives  him  from  fervour  to  frivol- 
ity. 

You  will  observe  where  Paul  places  frivolity; 
it  is  in  the  *  desires.'  I  do  not  suppose  he  was 
in  the  least  afraid  of  Timothy's  outward  morals; 
I  am  quite  sure  he  had  no  cause  to  be.  But 
Paul  did  not  think  this  a  sufficient  ground  of 
safety.  If  he  had  been  told  of  Timothy's  ex- 
ternal purity,  he  would  still  have  cried,  *  Flee 
youthful  desires ! '  The  frivolous  man  was  to 
Paul  the  man  who  desired  frivolous  things. 
The  fast  man  in  moral  life  was  he  whose  heart 
was  crowded  with  images  of  vanity  and  with 
forms  of  sensual  mould.  The  contact  which 
Paul  feared  for  Timothy  was  an  inward  contact. 
He  dreaded  no  company  for  a  man  like  the  com- 
pany of  his  own  unregenerate  heart;  there  was 
his  place  of  temptation,  there  was  his  scene  of 
danger.  The  frivolities  of  life  were  in  each 
man's  soul,  and  to  cherish  these  in  the  soul  was 
already  to  yield  to  temptation. 

I  will  mention  one  other  advice  of  Paul  to 
Timothy— more  directly  pastoral  than  those  pre- 
ceding, yet  dictated  like  these  by  the  apostle's 


TIMOTHY  THE  DISCIPLINED        323 

memory  of  the  pupil's  youth.  He  tells  him 
to  be  a  workman  *  rightly  dividing  the  word 
of  truth. '  The  great  temptation  of  young  min- 
isters is  to  view  the  word  of  truth  in  a  single 
aspect.  Paul  says  it  ought  to  be  *  divided' — 
given  out  in  portions  according  to  the  needs  of 
the  recipient.  The  youthful  pastor  is  apt  to 
address  perpetually  one  class.  One  such  pastor 
has  a  philosophic  cast;  another  is  evangelical; 
a  third  is  purely  practical — so  we  often  sum 
up  the  special  qualities  of  the  preacher.  Paul 
would  say  that  each  of  the  three  was  in  fault 
through  not  'dividing'  the  word  of  truth.  He 
would  say  that  one  man  should  combine  them 
all.  He  will  probably  have  in  his  congregation 
representatives  of  all.  The  philosopher  will  be 
there — studying  the  mysteries  of  being.  The 
evangelical  will  be  there — inquiring  the  way  of 
salvation.  The  moralist  will  be  there — seeking 
the  path  of  duty.  Paul  would  say,  *  Divide  the 
word  of  truth — speak  to  each  in  turn. '  To  him 
the  pastoral  life  is  a  sacrificial  life  in  which  a 
man  ought  to  put  himself  in  sympathy  with 
the  Hmits  of  his  congregation — to  conceive  his 


324         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

subject,  not  as  it  appears  to  hiniy  but  as  it 
must  appear  to  different  modes  of  mind.  He 
must  empty  himself  of  his  own  predilections 
— must  think  with  the  thoughts  of  others.  He 
must  see  deeply  with  the  student,  simply  with 
the  children,  practically  with  the  workers  and  toil- 
ers. He  must  give  to  each,  not  his  own  favour- 
ite portion,  but  the  portion  to  which  each  is 
suited.  He  must  not  descant  on  Dives  and  Laz- 
arus at  the  bedside  of  an  invalid,  nor  expound 
the  case  of  the  ten  virgins  to  a  penitent  seek- 
ing rest.  He  must  be  appropriate — which  lit- 
erally means,  he  must  give  to  every  one  his  own. 
That  is  the  right  '  dividing '  of  the  word  of  truth. 
Now,  Paul  may  have  observed  in  Timothy's 
youth  a  tendency  to  this  one-sidedness.  There 
was  everything  to  favour  its  existence.  The 
Greek  blood  within  him  made  for  it  in  one  di- 
rection; the  Jewish  blood  within  him  made  for 
it  in  another.  The  spirit  of  youth  itself  fa- 
voured it.  Youth  is  ever  apt  to  be  one-sided, 
and  therefore  inappropriate.  Young  people 
tend  to  say  the  thing  unsuited  to  a  particular 
occasion,  and  they  do  so  simply  because  they 


TIMOTHY  THE  DISCIPLINED        325 

are  one-sided.  The  cure  for  them,  the  cure  for 
Timothy,  the  cure  for  all  of  us,  is  Christianity 
— the  power  to  stand  in  the  place  of  another. 
That  is  what  makes  the  religion  of  Christ  differ 
alike  from  the  Gentile  and  the  Jew;  it  can  in- 
corporate itself  in  the  sympathies  of  both.  It 
can  divide  a  portion  of  the  soul  between  either 
combatant,  and  therefore  can  beat  with  the 
heart  of  each.  The  imitation  of  Christ  is  the 
imitation  of  one  who  emptied  himself,  who 
clothed  himself  in  the  likeness  of  others,  who 
strove  to  live  in  the  experience  of  those  beneath 
him.  Only  in  the  effort  to  follow  this  life  can 
man  avoid  the  partialities  of  the  Gentile  and 
the  Jew. 

There  is  one  little  point  to  which  I  should 
like  to  direct  attention.  Did  you  ever  ask  your- 
self why  it  is  that  before  administering  this 
discipline  to  Timothy  Paul  himself  assumes  such 
a  humble  attitude.?  Instead  of  opening  with 
a  tone  of  authority,  he  begins  his  letter  by  tell- 
ing Timothy  what  a  miserable  creature  he  him- 
self had  been — a  blasphemer,  a  persecutor,  an 
injurer  of  men,  a  man  who  for  his  present  posi- 


326         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

tion  was  entirely  indebted  to  the  mercy  of  God. 
And  can  you  fail  to  see  why  Paul  begins  by 
taking  the  lowest  room?  It  was  in  accordance 
with  his  own  sublime  exhortation,  *  If  a  man  be 
overtaken  in  a  fault,  restore  such  a  one  in  the 
spirit  of  meekness. '  He  means,  in  other  words, 
*Do  not  address  him  from  a  lordly  height;  let 
him  see  that  you  too  have  tripped  in  your  day. ' 
That  is  what  Paul  wanted  Timothy  to  see.  He 
did  not  wish  the  pupil  to  look  upon  him  as  a 
demi-god.  He  knew  that  the  basis  of  all  teach- 
ing is  sympathy,  and  that  sympathy  demands 
a  common  experience.  He  comes  to  Timothy, 
not  in  his  latest  robes,  but  in  his  original  rags. 
He  speaks  to  him,  not  from  the  top  of  the  lad- 
der, but  from  its  base.  He  pleads  with  him, 
not  as  one  who  was  born  to  angelic  purity  and 
has  never  breathed  the  air  of  evil,  but  as  one 
who  has  known  corruption,  who  has  felt  tempta- 
tion, who  has  touched  sin,  who  has  learned  the 
pain  of  struggle,  and  who  even  now  is  unable  to 
ascribe  his  salvation  to  any  merit  of  his  own. 
The  discipline  from  such  a  man  has  strength, 
but  no  sting. 


TIMOTHY  THE  DISCIPLINED        327 

LORD,  when  I  go  to  discipline  my  brother- 
man,  let  me  remember  his  environment! 
Let  me  remember  Timothy's  youth,  and  that 
the  passions  of  youth  are  strong!  Let  me  re- 
member his  Greek  blood  that  cries  for  novelty 
in  every  form — that  flies  to-day  on  the  wings  of 
fancy,  to-morrow  on  the  pinions  of  pleasure! 
Let  me  remember  his  Pagan  influences,  and 
how  many  voices  in  the  Garden  urge  him  to 
climb  the  tree!  Let  me  remember,  above  all, 
my  own  youth,  my  own  heredity,  my  own  first 
surroundings !  When  I  visit  my  erring  brother, 
let  me  put  on  my  garment  of  yesterday!  Let 
me  not  go  to  him  wearing  that  best  robe  which 
Thou  hast  brought  forth  for  me,  and  display- 
ing that  bright  ring  which  claims  me  as  Thy 
child!  Let  me  fold  Thy  fair  garment  and  lay 
it  by ;  let  me  take  off  Thy  bright  ring  and  put 
it  aside!  Bring  me  the  mean  attire  of  my 
morning!  Bring  me  the  squalid  garb  in  which 
first  I  met  Thee !  Bring  me  the  tattered  rags 
in  which  of  old  I  stood  before  Thy  door!  I 
will  go  to  my  brother,  clothed  in  the  likeness 
of  sinful  flesh.     I  will  go  to  him  with  ringless 


328        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

hands,  with  shoeless  feet,  with  prideless  gait. 
I  will  go  to  him  and  say,  *  I  come  to  thee  from 
thine  own  valley — from  humiliation  kindred  to 
thine.  I  too  have  been  among  the  swine.  I 
too  have  been  a  child  of  the  famine.  I  too 
have  been  content  to  feed  on  the  husks  for  a 
time.  By  no  merit  of  mine  am  I  saved;  while 
I  was  yet  afar  off  my  Father  saw  me.  Receive 
thy  hope  from  me^  thy  comfort  from  me,  thine 
example  from  me!  Learn  from  my  rags  thy 
possible  riches !  See  in  my  meanness  thy  possi- 
ble majesty!  Behold  in  my  lowliness  thy  pos- 
sible ladder!  Read  in  my  corruption  thy  possi- 
ble crown!  So,  on  the  stepping-stones  of  my 
dead  self,  may'st  thou  rise  to  higher  things.* 


CHAPTER  XVI 

PAUL  THE   ILLUMINATED 

In  the  chapters  on  Barnabas,  Mark,  and  Tim- 
othy I  have  alluded  to  many  of  the  outward 
incidents  in  the  life  of  Paul.  I  do  not  intend 
to  traverse  these  lines  again.  I  do  not  intend 
to  traverse  any  historical  lines.  And  for  this 
reason:  The  difference  between  Paul  and  the 
other  figures  of  the  Gallery  is  not  an  outward 
difference.  If  you  look  at  him  merely  in  the 
external  acts  of  his  life,  you  will  find  nothing 
that  marks  him  out  as  a  man  of  unique  experi- 
ence. I  do  not  know  of  any  historical  fact  in 
Paul's  experience  which  I  am  not  prepared  to 
parallel  with  the  experience  of  those  already 
considered.  Did  Paul  reject  Christ;  so,  for 
a  moment,  did  Peter.  Did  Paul  miraculously 
escape  from  prison;    so   also   did    Peter.     Did 

Paul  suffer  shipwreck;    so,  to  an  equal  extent, 
329 


330         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

did  Peter.  Did  Paul  turn  a  somersault ;  so  did 
John.  Did  Paul  write  compositions  of  the  most 
divers  kinds ;  so  did  John.  Did  Paul  receive  a 
vision  of  heavenly  things;  so  did  John.  Was 
Paul  suddenly  convinced  of  the  power  of  Jesus; 
so  was  Thomas.  I  could  multiply  parallels 
almost  indefinitely  to  show  that  the  outward 
life  of  the  Gentile  apostle  is  not  essentially  dis- 
tinct from  the  lives  of  his  fellow-Christians. 
What  distinguishes  Paul  is  an  experience  from 
within — an  illumination  from  the  spirit,  the  ris- 
ing of  an  inner  sun.  It  is  the  fact  that  this 
man  after  conversion  did  the  same  kind  of  work 
which  he  had  been  doing  before,  and  that  yet 
by  an  added  light  in  his  soul  he  found  it  to  be 
wholly  new.  His  work  as  Saul  of  Tarsus  was 
the  building  of  a  temple ;  his  work  as  Paul  the 
Apostle  was  the  building  of  a  temple  too.  Yet, 
what  he  felt  was  not  uniformity  but  difference, 
contrast,  revolution.  Outwardly  he  was  engaged 
in  the  old  things ;  but  in  the  very  act  he  was 
constrained  to  cry,  *  Old  things  are  passed 
away. '  Whence  came  this  paradox  ?  From  what 
he  himself   calls  a  shining  in    the  heart.      The 


PAUL  THE  ILLUMINATED  331 

change  was  in  the  region  of  the  spirit.  Sun 
and  moon  and  stars  remained  the  same;  moun- 
tain, river,  and  stream  abode  in  their  wonted 
place;  but  within  his  soul  a  new  presence  had 
arisen,  and  by  its  potency  and  power  every  ob- 
ject of  his  past  was  transformed  and  glorified. 

The  crisis  hour  of  Paul's  life  was  his  transi- 
tion from  Judaism  into  Christianity.  What 
was  that  transition.?  We  are  so  familiar  with 
the  fact  that  we  are  apt  to  forget  what  it  repre- 
sents. What  is  the  spiritual  difference  between 
the  Jew  and  the  Christian.?  It  is  easy  to  state 
the  doctrinal  difference;  but  that  of  the  spirit 
lies  deeper.  Let  me  try  to  exhibit  the  con- 
trast in  the  form  of  a  little  parable. 

A  certain  father  had  two  boys  whom  he  was 
very  desirous  to  bring  up  good.  He  thought 
this  would  best  be  accomplished  by  inuring 
them  to  a  habit  of  life.  Accordingly,  he  made 
a  proposal  to  them.  He  promised  to  give  each 
of  them  a  penny  for  every  hour  of  the  day 
in  which  they  should  abstain  from  doing  any 
bad  action.  As  the  sleeping  hours  were  in- 
evitably included  in  such  a  bargain,  it  was  real- 


332         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

ly  an  offer  to  each  of  two  shillings  a  day  for 
total  abstinence  from  wicked  deeds.  The  elder 
brother  accepted  the  proposal  with  alacrity; 
the  younger  refused — he  preferred  his  freedom. 
The  elder  brother  got  the  name  of  being  virtuous. 
He  did  not,  indeed,  uniformly  make  his  two 
shillings,  for  there  was  always  some  hour  of 
some  day  in  which  he  transgressed;  but  out  of 
each  day  he  always  gathered  something.  The 
younger,  on  the  other  hand,  was  deemed  reck- 
less, careless,  godless ;  hardly  an  hour  passed  in 
which  he  had  not  his  hand  in  something  wrong. 
The  one  brother  was  called  the  man  of  God, 
the  other  the  man  of  Satan. 

But  in  process  of  time  a  thing  happened  which 
made  one  section  of  the  community  change  its 
mind.  The  brothers  chanced  one  day  to  pass  a 
picture  in  a  shop  window — it  was  that  of  a  man 
walking  through  the  scenes  of  a  malignant  pes- 
tilence in  the  sheer  hope  of  alleviating  human 
pain.  The  elder  brother  looked  at  the  picture 
with  indifference.  The  younger  gazed,  lifted 
up  his  hands  and  cried,  '  I  believe  in  that  man ; 
that  is  the  man  I  should  like  to  serve,  should 


PAUL  THE  ILLUMINATED  333 

like  to  follow,  should  like  to  imitate/  And  the 
bystander  said :  *  It  is  this  younger  brother 
that  deserves  the  prize.  Incorrect  as  his  life 
comparatively  is,  though  there  is  not  an  hour 
in  which  he  does  not  commit  faults  to  which  his 
brother  is  a  stranger,  he  has  yet  reached  in  one 
thought,  in  one  aspiration,  in  one  admiring  look, 
a  height  which  through  all  the  laborious  days 
that  brother  has  never  climbed.' 

Now,  the  elder  brother  of  this  parable  is  the 
Jew ;  the  younger  is  the  Christian.  The  former 
makes  the  attempt  to  count  his  deeds  of  absti- 
nence. The  latter  keeps  no  reckoning  of  his 
deeds;  but  in  his  room  there  hangs  a  picture 
of  surpassing  beauty — a  picture  he  has  bought 
and  on  which  he  gazes  continually;  it  is  the 
description  of  an  act  of  love  by  which  a  Divine 
spirit  gave  his  life  for  the  world.  The  difference 
between  the  Jew  and  the  Christian  is  the  dif- 
ference between  the  tied  hand  and  the  winged 
mind.  It  is  quite  possible  that  the  force  of 
outward  law  may  keep  a  man  all  his  life  from  in- 
juring his  neighbour;  yet  such  a  man  will  be 
no  nearer  to  the  beauties  of  holiness  than  had 


334        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

he  been  living  in  a  state  of  open  war.  But 
suppose  that,  instead  of  t3dng  his  hands,  you 
Hberated  his  heart,  suppose  that,  instead  of  par- 
alysing him  with  fear,  you  quickened  him  with 
a  sense  of  beauty,  suppose  that  you  confronted 
him,  not  with  the  penalties  of  doing  harm,  but 
with  a  picture  of  doing  good,  you  would  give  him 
in  a  moment  the  door  of  access  into  a  purity 
which  all  the  years  of  his  mere  moral  abstinence 
have  failed  to  reveal  to  his  sight.  The  picture 
on  which  he  would  look  would  be  beyond  his 
present  strength;  and  he  would  know  it  to 
be  so.  But  none  the  less  it  would  be  the  true 
measure  of  the  man,  the  prophecy  of  his  com- 
ing self,  the  foreshadowing  of  that  height  which 
he  is  destined  to  win. 

Let  us  return  for  a  moment  to  the  parable 
of  the  two  boys.  I  have  indicated  that  the  by- 
standers take  different  sides.  Some  go  with 
the  elder  brother  who  keeps  the  laborious  hours ; 
others  adhere  to  the  younger  who  gazes  on  the 
beautiful  picture.  Now,  Paul  at  first  sided  with 
the  former  class.  He  thought  that  the  promised 
sum  ought  to  be  given  to  the  boy  who  made 


PAUL  THE  ILLUMINATED  335 

himself  a  drudge.  He  was  very  angry  with 
the  seductive  picture  which  had  seemed  to  open 
up  a  short  and  easy  way.  He  was  so  angry  that 
he  could  not  keep  away  from  it.  He  wanted  to 
see  where  its  power  of  seduction  lay — to  study 
it  that  he  might  refute  it.  So  he  went  daily  to 
look  at  the  picture,  and  gazed  on  it  with  an  ad- 
verse eye.  But,  as  he  looked,  there  happened  a 
strange  thing — the  picture  crept  into  his  soul. 
He  had  sought  to  find  the  secret  of  its  power 
with  the  view  of  refuting  it.  He  did  find  the 
secret  of  its  power;  but  it  refuted  him.  The 
gaze  of  anger  was  transmuted  into  a  gaze  of 
rapture.  He  was  conquered  by  the  spectacle 
of  moral  purity.  He  saw  a  spotless  soul  walk- 
ing amid  the  dread  pestilence  of  sin — treading 
the  infected  streets,  touching  the  unclean  gar- 
ments, breathing  the  deadly  vapours,  nursing 
the  stricken  patients,  haunting  the  scenes  of 
horror  from  which  the  world  had  fled,  and  at 
last  sinking  exhausted  by  the  wayside  and  pur- 
chasing the  life  of  others  by  the  sacrifice  of  his 
own.  All  this  Paul  saw,  and  for  the  first  time 
there  woke  within  him  a  sense  of  what  sin  really 


336         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

was,  what  purity  really  was,  what  the  service 
of  God  really  was.  In  one  instant  he  rose  far 
above  all  the  steps  he  had  been  climbing  for 
years.  By  one  thought,  by  one  vision,  by  one 
sight  of  an  ideal  man,  he  reached  a  height  which 
a  thousand  acts  had  failed  to  win.  He  said : 
*  I  believe  in  that  man — he  expresses  all  that 
I  should  like  to  be.  Will  not  this  be  God's 
measure  of  me,  God's  estimate  of  me,  the 
standard  of  judgment  by  which  God  will  see 
my  capacities  for  good!  Will  He  not  test  me 
for  the  time  to  come,  not  by  what  I  am,  but 
by  what  I  wish  to  be ! ' 

This  was  the  moment  of  Paul's  illumination. 
It  was  the  moment  in  which  there  entered  into 
his  soul  the  one  love  of  his  life — the  only  pas- 
sion which  ever  stirred  his  heart.  Christ  has 
appealed  to  men  in  many  ways — sometimes  in 
fear,  sometimes  in  reverence,  sometimes  in  spec- 
ulation, sometimes  in  the  sense  of  protection. 
To  Paul  He  is  exclusively  an  object  of  love. 
Every  other  phase  of  thought  is  absorbed  in 
that  one.  He  tells  us  so  himself.  In  that  mag- 
nificent hymn  of  his  which  will  live  as  long  as 


PAUL  THE  ILLUMINATED 


337 


the  Christian  ages,  he  sings  not  only  the  ever- 
lastingness  but  the  predominance  of  love. 
He  sings  how  in  his  own  experience  all  virtues 
have  melted  into  love  —  how  faith  has  faded 
into  its  certainty,  how  prophecy  has  died  in  its 
fulfilment,  how  knowledge  has  yielded  to  its 
light.  The  inward  history  of  Paul  is  the  history 
of  his  love — the  history  of  that  process  by  which 
love  filled  all  things.^  This,  from  an  artistic 
point  of  view,  is  the  real  interest  of  the  apos- 
tle's life.  His  missionary  journeys  interest  the 
evangelist,  his  doctrinal  system  attracts  the 
theologian;  but  what  distinguishes  him  to 
the  eye  of  the  artist  is  that  gradual  process  of 
illumination  through  which,  step  by  step  and 
sphere  by  sphere,  every  part  of  the  universe 
was  lit  up,  until  the  world  became  to  him  'the 
fulness  of  Him  that  filleth  all  in  all. ' 

I  have  spoken  of  Paul's  illumination  as  a 
gradual  process.  I  should  like  to  explain  what 
I  mean  by  this.     I  do  not  think  that  after  his 

'  Love  came  to  Paul  as  self -enlightenment,  to  John  as 
self-surrender ;  Paul  never  needed  self -surrender — at  no 
time  did  he  live  for  himself. 

22 


33S         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

conversion  Paul  ever  changed  his  mind  on  a  mat- 
ter of  doctrine — his  faith  in  Christ  was  as  strong 
at  the  beginning  as  it  was  at  the  end.  Nor 
do  I  think  that  Paul's  actual  love  for  Christ 
went  through  any  modification;  it  began  per- 
haps unconsciously,  and  was  revealed  to  himself 
suddenly,  but  from  that  time  I  think  it  never 
varied.  When  I  speak,  however,  of  a  gradual 
process  in  Paul,  I  mean,  not  an  enlargement 
of  his  love,  but  an  enlargement  of  its  sphere. 
These  two  things  are  quite  distinct.  A  child's 
love  for  his  father  may  be  perfect  without  being 
perfectly  illuminating.  It  may  be  an  isolated 
and  isolating  love — may  keep  him  from  seeing 
the  beauty  and  acknowledging  the  real  attrac- 
tions of  the  other  persons  around  him.  Illu- 
mination is  not  the  heating  but  the  lighting 
process.  Paul's  love  to  Christ  was  as  perfect 
when  he  wrote  to  the  Thessalonians  as  when  he 
penned  his  letters  to  Timothy;  but  it  was  less 
far-seeing,  or,  to  speak  more  accurately,  it  shed 
less  light  upon  surrounding  things.  The  tri- 
umph of  love  is  not  the  amount  of  its  passion ;  it 
is  the  number  of  things  which  it  irradiates.     The 


PAUL  THE  ILLUMINATED  339 

development  of  Paul  is  not  a  deepening  of  con- 
viction, not  a  progress  in  doctrine,  not  an  inten- 
sifying of  emotion,  not  a  growth  in  the  spirit 
of  sacrifice;  it  is  an  enlargement  of  the  sphere 
of  love.  He  says  himself  that  his  Christ  was 
destined  to  fill  all  things  within  his  universe. 
And  so  He  was;  but  the  process  was  not  an 
instantaneous  one.  Paul  did  not  at  once  see 
all  things  subject  to  Him.  At  first  his  Christ 
seemed  to  dwell  apart  from  the  world  and  to 
be  sharply  divided  from  the  world.  Step  by 
step  the  barriers  were  broken  down,  and,  as  each 
barrier  fell,  the  light  ran  over.  Field  was  added 
to  field  where  the  Divine  Presence  could  walk  in 
the  cool  of  the  day,  till,  in  the  fulness  of  Paul's 
experience,  the  world  on  every  side  was  *  bound 
by  gold  chains  about  the  feet  of  God. ' 

What  is  the  common  process  of  love's  en- 
largement.^ Take  a  human  love;  take  what 
we  generally  term  romantic  love.  What  are 
the  stages  through  which  it  is  wont  to  pass.?  I 
think  there  are  four.  At  first  it  is  a  hope — 
something  to  be  realised  to-morrow.  Then  it 
is   a   present   possession,    but   reserved   as   yet 


340        THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

only  for  garden  hours  when  we  are  free  from  the 
bustle  of  the  crowd.  By  and  by  its  range  is 
widened — it  becomes  a  stimulus  for  the  great 
duties  of  life;  it  comes  out  from  the  garden 
into  the  city;  it  nerves  to  do  and  to  bear.  At 
last  it  reaches  its  climax — it  comes  down  to 
trifles.  It  glorifies  the  commonplace;  it  finds 
sermons  in  stones  and  sonnets  in  the  dust.  Lit- 
tle things  are  magnified;  unromantic  things 
are  glorified.  We  do  prosaic  work.  We  per- 
form menial  duties.  We  go  through  cheerful 
drudgery.  We  pluck  thorns  instead  of  flowers, 
and  smile  at  the  pain.  The  latest  stage  of 
love's  enlargement  is  when  it  touches  the 
things  on  the  ground. 

And  this  is  the  order  in  the  enlargement  of 
Pauls  love.  How  do  we  know  this?  Because 
we  have  in  our  possession  a  copy  of  his  love- 
letters.  They  form  a  series  stretching  over 
some  fifteen  or  sixteen  years.  If  we  cannot 
always  point  to  their  exact  date,  we  can  tell 
at  least  the  order  in  which  they  come.  And 
as  we  study  them  in  this  light  we  make  a  dis- 
covery.    We  find  that  the  series  is  a  series  of 


PAUL  THE  ILLUMINATED  341 

milestones.  The  letters  of  Paul  are  a  pro- 
gressive history.  They  describe  the  onward 
march  of  his  love — and  none  the  less  effective- 
ly because  they  do  it  unconsciously.  You  may 
not  trace  landmarks  in  his  theology.  As  you 
travel  from  the  Thessalonians  to  the  Corinthians, 
from  the  Corinthians  to  the  Ephesians,  from 
the  Ephesians  to  the  Pastorals,  you  may  not  be 
able  to  point  to  a  spot  in  which  a  new  doc- 
trine has  taken  the  place  of  the  old.  But  there 
is  one  thing  you  can  see — the  bird  is  flying  over 
a  larger  field.  The  bird  is  love.  Its  wings  have 
not  increased  in  strength,  its  plumage  is  not 
more  beautiful,  its  flight  is  not  more  high;  but 
its  range  is  wider  over  the  earthly  plain.  The 
history  of  love's  enlargement  in  Paul  is  identical 
with  the  history  of  its  enlargement  in  you.  He 
reaches  the  goal  of  freedom  by  the  same  road. 
There  are  no  two  kinds  of  love  where  love  is 
pure.  Paul's  devotion  to  his  Christ  was  not 
different  in  essence  from  your  devotion  to  an 
earthly  friend;  and  the  enlargement  of  his  de- 
votion to  his  Christ  followed  the  same  steps 
which  enlarge  the  compass  of  your  human  devo- 


342         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

tion.  Christ  is  to  him  first  the  object  who  is 
coming,  then  the  object  that  is  already  in  the 
souly  then  the  object  that  gives  strength  for 
the  world,  and  lastly  the  object  which  has  glori- 
fied the  things  once  deemed  insignificant  and 
trivial.     Let  us  glance  at  each  of  these. 

When  Paul's  love  for  Christ  first  rose,  it  rose 
as  a  hope.  Like  romantic  love,  it  presented  it- 
self as  the  prospect  of  to-morrow.  Christ  was 
coming  —  He  would  change  all  things,  would 
beautify  all  things.  This  present  system  did 
not  represent  Him;  but  this  present  system  was 
ready  to  vanish  away.  '  It  is  not  here,  *  he  cries 
to  the  Thessalonians,  '  that  you  can  expect  to 
see  Christ's  glory;  His  glory  can  only  ap- 
pear in  the  transformation  of  the  world.  He 
is  coming  to  transform,  to  purify,  to  brighten. 
It  is  true,  some  of  you  are  expecting  Him  too 
soon.  The  world  has  not  yet  thoroughly  re- 
vealed its  badness;  it  is  kept  in  check  by  the 
laws  of  the  Roman  empire.  But  the  time  is 
coming  when  that  empire  shall  be  crushed  and 
broken ;  then  the  passions  of  men  shall  be  loosed 
and  you  will  learn  your  need  of  God's  morning. 


PAUL  THE  ILLUMINATED  343 

Your  hope  is  in  the  future;  your  sun  is  in  to- 
morrow's sky;  your  dawn  is  in  the  coming 
day.' 

Remember,  the  Christ  whom  Paul  first  saw 
was  the  Christ  in  heaven.  He  never  gazed 
upon  the  man  of  Galilee.  His  earliest  vision 
was  the  vision  of  a  Jesus  glorified.  Not  on  the 
road  to  the  cross  did  Christ  meet  him;  He 
came  to  him  panoplied  in  heavenly  splendour. 
What  his  inner  eye  beheld  was  the  Christ  of 
the  future — a  Christ  of  majesty,  a  Christ  of 
power,  a  Christ  who  came  clothed  in  the  light- 
ning and  wreathed  in  the  conqueror's  robe. 
That  was  the  first  Christian  image  in  Paul's 
soul.  Is  it  wonderful  that  it  should  have  been 
the  first  Christian  image  in  his  writings!  Is 
it  wonderful  that  his  earliest  note  of  missionary 
music  should  be  *  Jesus  and  the  Resurrection ' ! 
Is  it  wonderful  that  at  first  his  love  should  look 
forward  instead  of  either  back  or  around — 
should  begin,  neither  with  memory  nor  with 
fruition,  but  with  an  act  of  hope!  The  being 
whom  he  loved  had  come  to  him  as  a  prospect, 
not   as   a   possession.     He   had    flashed   before 


344         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

him  as  an  object  to  strive  for,  as  a  prize  which 
to-morrow  was  to  win;  and  therefore  within 
the  folds  of  to-morrow  lay  all  his  salvation 
and  all  his  desire. 

But  a  second  stage  was  coming ;  you  will  find 
it  in  the  transition  from  Athens  to  Corinth. 
Up  to  the  time  when  he  reached  the  summit  of 
Mars  Hill  he  had  preached  Christ  and  the  Res- 
urrection— the  Christ  behind  the  veil.  B  ut  af- 
ter his  descent  from  Mars  Hill  his  love  found 
a  new  sphere.  He  began  to  think,  not  of  the 
Christ  in  the  heavens,  but  of  the  Christ  in 
the  soul.  There  broke  upon  him  the  convic- 
tion that  even  in  this  world  there  might  be  a 
little  green  spot  where  he  could  meet  with  Je- 
sus. There  was  a  garden  plot  on  earth  which 
was  not  of  earth — the  region  of  the  human 
spirit.  Thither  he  might  retire  betimes  and  be 
at  peace.  Within  the  scene  of  turmoil  there 
might  be  a  moment  of  supreme  joy,  a  place 
of  placid  rest,  a  bower  in  whose  sweet  retire- 
ment the  burden  and  the  heat  might  be  for- 
gotten and  where  the  soul  could  revel  in  com- 
munion with  the  object  of  its  love. 


PAUL  THE  ILLUMINATED  345 

Here,  then,  Paul's  love  has  reached  a  higher 
stage  of  illumination;  it  has  found  a  place 
within  the  present  world.  But  the  world  itself 
to  the  eye  of  Paul  has  not  yet  been  illuminated 
— it  only  contains  a  spot  where  illumination  is 
possible.  That  spot  is  thoroughly  fenced  in; 
the  common  round  of  life  enters  not  within 
its  precincts.  What  is  Paul's  attitude  towards 
the  world  at  this  time.-*  It  has  been  described 
as  an  adverse  one.  I  would  define  it  rather  as 
one  of  indifference.  He  is  in  that  stage  of 
love  in  which  everything  is  ignored  but  the  gar- 
den— the  place  of  meeting  with  its  object.  His 
language  towards  the  outside  is  not  that  of  en- 
mity but  simply  of  uninterestedness.  He  does 
not  condemn  marriage;  he  says  it  is  a  matter 
of  no  consequence  whether  one  is  married  or 
single.  He  does  not  condemn  merchandise; 
he  says  that  buying  and  selling  are  things  of 
no  religious  moment.  He  does  not  condemn 
the  use  of  life's  good  things;  he  says  that  he 
has  entered  into  a  joy  which  to  him  personally 
would  make  the  using  of  them  or  the  refraining 
from  them  a  question  of  absolute  unimportance 


346         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

— these  things  have  lost  their  glory  by  reason 
of  an  all-excelling  glory.  A  young  woman  of 
my  acquaintance  asked  a  revival  preacher  if  he 
thought  there  was  any  harm  in  dancing;  the 
answer  was,  'I  do  not  see  how  you  can  find 
time.'  I  think  that  at  this  period  such  would 
have  been  Paul's  reply  to  any  one  asking  whether 
in  the  light  of  Christ  he  was  entitled  to  take 
part  in  worldly  pleasures;  he  would  have  said, 
*The  time  is  short*  To  his  mind  it  was  not 
so  much  that  Christ  opposed  anything  as  that 
He  dwarfed  everything.  He  eclipsed  to  Paul 
even  the  glories  of  nature.  Men  have  wondered 
at  his  silence  on  physical  beauty;  some  have 
explained  it  by  the  theory  that  the  thorn  in  his 
flesh  was  blindness.  It  may  have  been.  But, 
to  account  for  Paul's  silence  about  physical 
beauty,  we  need  no  thorn.  It  came  from  his 
flower.  There  was  a  presence  in  the  air  which 
to  him  put  out  sun  and  moon  and  star.  It 
struck  him  blind,  not  by  darkness,  but  by  light. 
It  dimmed  the  skies  by  its  glory.  It  withered 
the  flowers  by  its  radiance.  It  lowered  the 
mountains  by  its  majesty.     It  supplanted  eye 


PAUL  THE  ILLUMINATED  347 

and  ear,  and  reigned  in  their  stead.     The  world's 
beauty  to  Paul  was  crucified  in  Jesus. 

I  come  to  the  third  stage  in  the  illumination 
of  Paul's  love.  Its  birthplace  was  Caesarea  and 
within  the  walls  of  a  prison.^  Strange  that 
a  prison  should  have  been  the  scene  of  Paul's 
enlargement!  Yet,  paradoxical  as  it  seems,  it 
was  in  prison  that  the  world  expanded  to  his 
view.  Here,  for  the  first  time,  he  saw  Chris- 
tianity through  a  telescope;  and  things  which 
he  had  deemed  so  far  off  as  to  be  outside  the 
pale  of  Christ  were  brought  so  nigh  as  to  be 
recognised  as  parts  of  His  kingdom.  Christ 
had  already  been  recognised  by  Paul  as  the 
head  of  the  Church;  but  in  that  prison  at 
Caesarea  He  became  more — the  head  of  the 
state,  the  head  of  all  states.  Within  the  walls 
of  that  prison  the  Christian  world  burst  the 
boundaries  Paul  had  assigned  to  it.  The  sec- 
ular became  sacred  in  its  greater  manifestations 
— its  appearance  through  the  telescope.     Hith- 

^  I  have  here  followed  the  view  of  Meyer  that  the  Epis- 
tles to  the  Ephesians  and  the  Colossians  belong  to  the 
Caesarean  rather  than  to  the  Roman  Captivity — though, 
unlike  him,  I  assign  to  Rome  Philippians  and  Philemon. 


348         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

erto  in  the  apostle's  mind  the  kingdom  of 
Christ  had  been  limited  to  the  sitters  at  the 
communion-table.  But  here,  as  if  by  an  open- 
ing in  the  heavens,  there  was  revealed  a  wider 
empire  of  the  Son  of  Man.  He  was  no  longer 
merely  the  king  of  saints;  He  was  the  king  of 
kings — the  head  of  principalities  and  powers. 
The  Church  was  no  more  a  little  garden  walled 
in  from  the  outside  world;  the  outside  world 
was  itself  the  vestibule  into  the  Church.  All 
kingdoms  were  Christ's  kingdom;  all  history 
was  Church-history;  all  events  among  the  na- 
tions were  events  in  the  sphere  of  religion. 
Paul  began  to  see  his  Christ  outside  the  limits 
of  Eden  and  apart  from  the  trees  of  the  Gar- 
den. He  had  traced  His  hand  in  the  breaking 
of  communion  bread;  he  began  to  trace  it  in 
the  powers  called  natural — in  the  field  of  pol- 
itics, in  the  field  of  war,  in  the  field  of  litera- 
ture, in  the  field  of  human  eloquence.  There 
dawned  upon  him  the  conviction  that  salvation 
might  enter  the  soul  by  a  secular  door.  If 
Christ  was  the  head  of  the  state,  if  the  state 
as  well  as  the   Church   v/as   His   embodiment, 


PAUL  THE  ILLUMINATED  349 

then,  in  the  service  of  the  state,  a  man  might 
well  feel  that  he  was  performing  mission  labour. 
The  politician  in  the  very  pursuit  of  his  pol- 
itics, the  senator  in  the  very  exercise  of  his  art, 
the  soldier  in  the  very  act  of  defending  his 
country,  might  claim  to  be  evangelists.  In 
the  light  of  such  a  thought  as  that,  Paul  might 
well  realise  that  his  own  profession  was  taken 
by  violence,  and  that  the  secular  heroes  of  every 
age  could  claim  him  as  a  brother. 

Such  was  the  illumination  of  Paul's  love  in 
the  sphere  of  the  telescope.  But  what  of  its 
illumination  in  the  sphere  of  the  microscope. 
He  had  seen  the  sacredness  of  the  state  with 
its  mighty  principalities  and  powers.  But  there 
was  an  opposite  to  the  state  and  its  principal- 
ities— the  home  and  its  commonplaces.  This  is 
the  last  stage  in  the  progress  of  romantic  love. 
It  reaches  every  spot  before  that.  It  begins  with 
the  future;  then  it  finds  in  the  present  a  se- 
cret place  where  the  world  cannot  come;  then 
it  wreathes  itself  round  the  great  things  of  the 
world.  All  these  Paul  had  passed  through. 
But  the  final  stage  remained — love's  illumination 


350         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

of  those  things  of  the  world  which  were  not 
great — the  gilding  of  the  commonplaces  of  home. 
That  also  was  coming.  Already  in  the  latest 
sections  of  what  I  consider  the  Caesarean  Epis- 
tles we  find  traces  of  the  idealising  of  home; 
yet  it  does  not  there  get  the  first  place.  It  is 
in  Paul's  last  missionary  journey  that  there 
strikes  the  final  hour  of  his  spiritual  pilgrim- 
age. There,  in  his  epistle  to  Titus,  his  love 
reaches  its  final  glory  by  reaching  the  ground. 
There,  for  the  first  time,  the  subject  from  be- 
ginning to  end  is  the  secular  home-life  of  the 
Christian  congregation.  To  the  eye  of  youth- 
ful romance  it  is  a  most  wingless  letter.  There 
are  no  flights  in  the  air,  no  speculations  about 
futurity,  no  expositions  of  Christian  doctrine. 
Their  place  is  taken  by  home  precepts — pre- 
cepts for  the  hearth,  precepts  for  the  household, 
precepts  for  the  unity  of  the  family  bond.  Each 
generation  is  addressed  in  turn  —  the  grand- 
father and  grandmother,  the  son  and  daughter, 
the  children  of  the  son  and  the  children  of  the 
daughter;  while  even  their  relation  to  the  do- 
mesUc  servants  is  not  forgotten.     Yet,  wingless 


PAUL  THE  ILLUMINATED  351 

as  the  letter  seems,  it  is  really  a  proof  that  love's 
wings  are  perfected.  In  the  illumination  of 
home's  prosaic  duties  the  spirit  of  romance  has 
reached  its  utmost  stretch  of  pinion.  Its  cli- 
max is  not  the  mount  but  the  vale;  its  glory  is 
not  the  diamond  but  the  dust.  When  Paul's 
love  had  illuminated  the  commonplaces  of  home, 
it  might  well  break  into  the  cry,  *  I  have  fought 
a  good  fight,  I  have  finished  my  course;  hence- 
forth there  is  laid  up  for  me  a  crown  of  glory. ' 

LORD,  illuminate  this  world  to  me!  Often 
have  I  asked  Thine  illumination  of  the 
spheres  beyond;  it  seemed  a  harder  thing  to 
light  up  heaven  than  to  light  up  earth.  But  I 
have  found  that  I  was  wrong.  It  is  for  humble 
things  I  most  need  Thy  revealing.  It  is  easy 
for  me  to  worship  in  the  solemn  hour  of  night 
when  the  pulse  of  life  is  silent  and  the  world's 
tread  beats  low.  It  is  easy  for  me  to  worship 
when  the  sacred  symbols  are  in  my  hand  and 
the  sacred  memories  are  in  my  soul.  But  the 
clouds  and  darkness  that  are  round  about  Thee 
lie  not  in  heaven's  mysteries;   they  lie  in  earth's 


352         THE  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

shallows.  It  is  bewildering  to  see  Cana  anxious 
only  about  a  deficiency  in  the  feast  when  the 
real  problem  is  one  of  life  and  death;  it  makes 
me  say,  *  Religion  is  unreal. '  Yet  Thou  hast 
stooped  to  the  shallows  of  Cana,  Thou  hast 
thrown  Thyself  into  sympathy  with  the  wants 
of  children.  I  can  find  Thee,  I  can  find  Thy 
cross,  even  in  the  land  of  trifles.  Help  me, 
when  there,  to  seek  that  cross!  Help  me  to 
repeat  Thy  sympathy  with  Cana!  Help  me  to 
wade  in  the  shallows  with  the  child!  Help  me 
to  remember  needs  that  I  have  surmounted,  to 
respect  desires  that  I  have  outgrown!  Help 
me  to  go  down  to  the  things  I  used  to  wish 
for — to  recall  the  claims  of  yesterday!  Then 
shall  I  be  fervent  even  amid  frivolities,  true 
even  amid  trifles,  Christian  even  amid  crudities. 
Then  shall  I  find  pearls  in  the  pool,  gold  in  the 
grass,  sapphires  in  the  snow,  treasures  in  the 
trodden  way.  Then  shall  Thy  cross  be  planted 
in  its  most  unlikely  soil — the  place  of  worldly 
pleasure,  the  ground  which  the  trivial  tread. 
Love  will  have  lighted  her  final  torch  when  she 
has  illuminated  the  wants  of  Cana. 


BS2430.M31905  ^  ^    ^, 

The  representative  men  of  the  New 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00163  7471 


